THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume X, Issue # 231, September 15, 2008
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES DIFFER SHARPLY ON ETHANOL
By Dennis T. Avery
ENERGY, AGRICULTURE, & THE 2008 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION: THE ROLE OF ETHANOL IN FUTURE U.S. ENERGY
POLICY -- WHAT OBAMA SAYS -- WHAT MCCAIN SAYS -- GLOBAL COOLING & ITS PROBABLE ANSWER TO THE QUESTION
FULL STORY:
Barack Hussein Obama, Jr., and John Sidney McCain III have sharply different visions of ethanol in the nation’s future.
Barack Obama wants more ethanol, while John McCain thinks we should probably have less. Both say man-made global
warming is a serious threat, and both say they want the best for the nation’s farmers.
At the gas pump, Consumer Reports in 2006 found it cost the customer 37 percent more to run a flex-fuel SUV with
an 85 percent ethanol fuel blend. The ethanol was more expensive than gasoline and delivers 35 percent less energy per
gallon.
Worse, Science has recently published studies from Princeton and the University of Minnesota that found clearing
more forest or grasslands for biofuel crops releases huge amounts of the carbon stored naturally in native soils. The study
from Princeton University found “corn based ethanol . . . nearly doubles greenhouse emissions over 30 years and increases
greenhouse gases for 167 years.” Anyone who’s visited corn country in the past two years knows that every scrap of
potential corn land has been planted, and the farmers are sharpening their chainsaws to clear the woodlot in the corner of
the farm.
If more corn ethanol means higher fuel costs and more American forests cleared for corn, will an expanded ethanol mandate
produce a popular backlash against both ethanol and corn farmers? The European Union is already proposing to cut its
newly installed biofuel mandates from 10 percent of transport fuel in 2020 to 6 percent.
Not to mention that all biofuels will essentially have to be grown on “converted” cropland — because global food and feed
demand will double over the next 40 years. We’ve got to feed the last surge of population growth, and another surge of
poor people getting rich enough to demand chicken, ice cream, and pet food.
Barack Obama says we not only need more ethanol, we need it produced by farmer-owned cooperatives in the small towns
and cities across the Corn Belt. He’d require the oil companies to slash the carbon emissions of their fuels by 20 percent by
2020 — prodding not only more ethanol consumption, but also higher corn and ethanol prices.
Farmers, themselves, are split right down the middle. Corn farmers love the ethanol mandates. However, many ethanol plants
are currently shut down because they’ve driven up corn prices beyond the processors’ profit margin. Livestock and poultry
producers warn that meat, milk, and eggs are likely to become Sunday-only luxury foods again, as they were during the Great
Depression.
McCain would eliminate the federal mandates, letting corn farmers compete without much risk of serious food price inflation.
One other danger for the farmers: Obama says he wants lots of small-city ethanol plants owned by the farmers, encouraged
by his low-carbon fuel mandate. He’d offer tax credits. But, at the same time, he’d subsidize the development of cellulosic
ethanol. If that’s successful, the cellulose would then compete with corn. Switchgrass and wood chips would be produced
in drier regions, on cheaper land that can’t grow corn. That could threaten bankruptcy for the very corn ethanol plants
encouraged by the Obama tax credits.
Of course, during the next President’s term, the world’s temperatures may continue their sharp decline of the past 18 months.
The falling temperatures were not predicted by the global climate models, but have been predicted by the sunspot index since
2000. With falling temperatures, the ethanol question may quickly fade from public concern, as we burn coal, oil, natural gas
and nuclear fuels instead.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
American Politics, Political Competition, & the Control of
Public Policy: Elections, Political Parties, Political Factions,
Ideologies, & Special Interest Groups
American Government & the U.S. Presidency:
Presidential Politics & National Leadership
The American Political System:
Politics & Government in the U.S.A.
Agriculture, the Economy, & Human Health & Welfare:
Policy Issues Relating to Food Production & Consumption
Political Environmentalism Versus Human Progress & Prosperity:
Policy Issues Relating to Energy, Environment,
& Natural Resources
The Earth's Natural History, Global Climate Changes,
& the Future of Human Life & Civilization on the Planet:
Science, Ideology, & Public Policy
Political Economy -- Philosophies, Systems, & Public Policies:
Government, the Economy, & Economic Prosperity
Dennis T. Avery is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C., and is the Director of the Institute's Center for
Global Food Issues (www.cgfi.org). Formerly he was a senior policy analyst for the United
States Department of State, where he won the National Intelligence Medal of Achievement. He is the co-author, with
atmospheric physicist Fred Singer, of the book, Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1500 Years (Blue Ridge Summit,
Pennsylvania: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006). Avery's book, Saving the Planet With Pesticides and Plastic: The Environmental
Triumph of High-Yield Farming (Washington, D.C.: Hudson Institute, 1995), continues to be popular as a readable overview
of realistic agriculture for the future and for today. Readers may write Avery at Post Office Box 202, Churchville, Virginia, 24421.
Email: cgfi@hughes.net
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Conservative & Free-Market Analysis of Government, Politics & Public Policy, Covering Political, Legal, Constitutional, Economic,
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Conservative Government Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity