Last month, Capitol Confidential reported that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) could be set to give the already well-subsidized ethanol industry a big boost by approving an increase in the amount of ethanol blended into gasoline from 10 percent to 15 percent.  That item sits at the top of the agenda of Washington, D.C.’s powerful ethanol lobby; a decision is expected to be reached on it later this year.

However, it is not the only handout to what critics dub “Big Corn” that may be on the table.  Sources tell Capitol Confidential that pro-ethanol groups are also actively pushing for legislation that critics charge constitutes more government meddling in both the auto industry and the energy sector—and that they have some powerful advocates in Congress and the administration on their side.

About a week ago, Sen. Richard Lugar, an Indiana Republican, unveiled a “cap-and-trade alternative,” among whose key provisions would be one to push automotive manufacturers to increase the number of flex-fuel vehicles they build.  Flex fuel vehicles are designed to run on E85, which is 85 percent ethanol.  Consequently, critics charge, it would be a huge boon to ethanol producers—and also to government-controlled General Motors, a big producer of flex fuel vehicles—were Lugar’s legislation to pass and be signed into law.

That, in turn, is an outcome that ethanol critics tell Capitol Confidential Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack would strongly support.

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Capitol Confidential and Jim Hoft have done an excellent job laying out concerns with the potential “compromise” bill that comes out of Sen. Bob Corker’s negotiations with Chris Dodd.  But when it comes to the destructive provisions that could come out of a Dodd-Corker deal, they may have just scratched the surface.

In addition to the troubling new powers for a new nanny-state consumer agency and possibly the Federal Reserve added to the prospect of billions more in bailouts for reckless financial firm, the bill may also contain the sneaky  “proxy access” power grab for unions, radical environmentalists, and other groups on the Left. This rule, inspired by Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals, is contained in Dodd’s “discussion draft” bill from late last year.

As I detailed in BigGovernment last week, “proxy access would federalize and override decades of state law governing the structure of corporations and force publicly-traded companies to put shareholders’ nominees for a board of directors on a company’s proxy ballot along with the firm’s own nominees for those positions.” Many shareholder groups that are pushing this are union pension funds, the radical Tides Foundation, and other progressive groups — from animal rights to anti-Israel — who place their own political agenda items at the expense of ordinary shareholders.

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