Some notables recognize ethanol not an answer
This entry was posted on 5/11/2008 10:20 PM and is filed under Tax Shifting,Biofuels,Ethanol,Costs of INACTION.
Ethanol is not an answer to our energy and environmental woes (past Solve4Biggies entries):
- Haitians eating dirt - wasteful U.S. ways partly responsible
- Fill-up your tank ONCE or feed a child for a year?
- It is time to stop the madness
- With ethanol we are feeding the pig
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From an AFP article two days ago on Yahoo! Green - Biofuels backlash in US as food costs hit home Excerpts:
"Members of Bush's own Republican party are turning on him, including Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, who called on Congress to undo 'America's ethanol mistake.' 'In recent weeks, the correlation between government biofuel mandates and rapidly rising food prices has become undeniable,' Hutchison said in a statement on her website. 'At a time when the US economy is facing recession, Congress needs to reform its food-to-fuel policies and look at alternatives to strengthen energy security.' Hutchison is due to introduce legislation to Congress that would freeze biofuel mandates at current levels.
Joachim von Braun, head of the US-based International Food Policy Research Institute, said a moratorium on biofuels from food grains in 2008 would lower corn prices by 20 percent and wheat prices by 10 percent in 2009 and 2010.
Renowned US economist Jeffrey Sachs has also leveled heavy biofuels criticism. 'What should be abandoned is the use of our current food supplies to turn them into ethanol, especially in the United States,' Sachs told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, calling the food-to-fuel program 'a lousy bargain.' In December Bush signed the Energy Independence and Security Act, which calls for a six-fold increase in the use of ethanol, to 36 billion gallons (136 billion liters) per year by 2022.
The United States is the world's top producer of corn-based ethanol, and the Bush administration sees it as a key way to reduce dependence on foreign oil and curb fossil fuel emissions, the main source of man-made global warming.
Lester Brown, founder of the Earth Policy Institute (EPI) said 'the evidence irrefutably demonstrates that this policy is not delivering on either goal.' 'In fact, it is causing environmental harm and contributing to a growing global food crisis,' Brown wrote in a scathing editorial in the Washington Post. EPI says the United States burned 25 percent of its corn supply as fuel last year, leading to just a one percent reduction in the country's oil consumption."
And, a New York Times editorial today - Rethinking Ethanol Excerpts:
"The time has come for Congress to rethink ethanol, an alternative fuel that has lately fallen from favor. Specifically, it is time to end an outdated tax break for corn ethanol and to call a timeout in the fivefold increase in ethanol production mandated in the 2007 energy bill.
Without reform, rising food prices and increasing damage to the climate could provoke a reaction that could be the undoing of the entire biofuels industry. That would not be helpful to the industry or the planet. "
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Is it just me, or is a federal tax shift looking better and better?
