Ethanol is made from grain, mostly corn. While it is a renewable energy source, using it is not without repercussion. If farmers can get a good price for their corn from fuel producers, they will sell it to them. If farmers can sell their grain to fuel producers, then chicken, pig, cattle, and dairy farmers will have to pay more for their corn. This will trickle down to the consumer as higher food prices. Even a box of breakfast cereal will cost more as a result of using Ethanol.
It is for this reason that we have never developed Ethanol as a fuel, especially when oil was going for less than $30.00/barrel. Producing Ethanol in large quantities is not cost effective when oil is cheap. Oil is much more expensive now, but what is really driving the cost at the pump is the lack of refineries. Hurricanes in the Gulf are a fact of life, but we have no extra refining capacity. So when a hurricane shuts down some refineries, there are none to take their place.

Should we build more Ethanol plants? Yes some, but going 'green' is not the answer.
Should we build more refineries? Definitely yes. We need these in the short term.
Should we invest heavily in new technology like hybrid and Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles? Emphatically Yes! These technologies can give us non-polluting vehicles which ultimatly depend on electricity. Electricity can be produced from coal, tidal, and nuclear sources with minimal environmental impact.