Democrat leads Drive against Bio-fuels

[Guest human_*]

At the price that oil is going up, the democrats can really take this drive and forget about it.

 

 

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Food-related industries launch anti-biofuel campaign

 

 

Bloomberg News

 

 

Industry groups representing companies including Kellogg, Tyson Foods and Kroger are coordinating efforts to reduce U.S. biofuels-use requirements with a new "Food Before Fuel" lobbying campaign.

 

The Grocery Manufacturers Association, the American Meat Institute, the National Restaurant Association and other groups say rising corn-based ethanol production is pushing food costs higher. Adding industry muscle to fight a federal requirement to about double ethanol production to 15 billion gallons by 2015 may slow the increase, helping company profits and easing consumer prices, said grocery association chief Cal Dooley.

 

"We are calling on Congress to step back and re-evaluate our biofuels policy, which is distorting the marketplace and harming the environment and consumers," Dooley, a former Democratic congressman from California, said in an interview before the campaign was officially unveiled today.

Dooley said the coalition will try to persuade members of Congress to relax ethanol-use rules, reduce tax credits for U.S. ethanol blenders and lower a tariff on ethanol imports.

 

The GMA, which represents Kellogg, the largest U.S. cereal maker, and Kroger, the largest food-store chain, as well as Coca-Cola, Kraft Foods and ConAgra Foods, and the other groups may also buy advertising to get their message across, he said.

 

Ethanol may contribute as much as 25 percent to the faster-than-usual gain in U.S. food prices, the Department of Agriculture has said. U.S. food inflation may be 5.5 percent this year, the highest rate since 1989, the department said last month.

 

Strain on Tyson

 

Biofuels are straining companies such as Tyson Foods, the largest U.S. meatpacker. Chief Executive Officer Richard Bond has said that costs for animal feed, which competes with ethanol for corn, have increased enough to make higher meat prices inevitable. Corn futures have jumped 72 percent in the past year.

 

The campaign also includes advocates for the poor and the environment, Dooley said, showing wide-ranging concern about the social and economic impacts of biofuels.

 

Ethanol's impact on food prices has led companies and some members of Congress, including Senator John McCain of Arizona, the presumptive Republican presidential candidate, to call for the Environmental Protection Agency to relax ethanol-use requirements lawmakers passed in December.

 

Ethanol Production

 

Ethanol producers including Poet LLC, Archer Daniels Midland Co. and VeraSun Energy Corp. operate 151 ethanol plants in the U.S. with capacity to produce 8.69 billion gallons a year, according to the Renewable Fuels Association in Washington. An additional 51 plants are being built and seven are being expanded, which will boost capacity to about 13.6 billion gallons.

 

Biofuels defenders, which include the Bush administration, say ethanol's effects on food costs are exaggerated, citing studies that show rising oil costs, the declining U.S. dollar, and possibly commodities speculation are bigger causes of inflation.

 

"While corn-based ethanol is a factor in the price increases in food, certainly it is not anywhere near one of the major driving factors in food price increases," Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer told reporters last week at a global conference on food prices and biofuels in Rome.

 

"Our ethanol policy of energy security, of better environmental factors, and a reduction in the cost of petroleum use in our country is the right policy direction," he said.

 

Globally, ethanol is causing 2 to 3 percent of global food-price gains, Schafer said. The Washington-based International Food Policy Research Institute says biofuels production has contributed about 30 percent to the rise in food prices.

 

Prices for staples such as corn, wheat and rice were 47 percent higher in April than a year earlier, according to the International Monetary Fund. The World Bank says as many as 33 nations may face unrest because of higher food prices.

 

www.bloomberg.com.

[Guest Dr. Biodiesel]

Only the starch of corn is used in ethanol production. The kernels, the protein, called distillers grain, goes to the feed lots anyway. Some producers are making ethanol from waste materials, like expired fruit juices.

[Guest Human_*]

Yeah! but everyone wants their own way on this, and this time it's not going to happen.

 

People are way more pissed of at the price of fuel than they are about food prices.

 

And on top of that, the democrats want to run from Iraq WHICH IS A MAJOR OIL PRODUCER "VERY STUPID THING TO DO".

 

Like it or not, we have to be there. Unless everyone wants the politics that Russia is playing with oil?

 

What is there politics? 250 bucks a barrel.

 

 

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Only the starch of corn is used in ethanol production. The kernels, the protein, called distillers grain, goes to the feed lots anyway. Some producers are making ethanol from waste materials, like expired fruit juices.

[Guest Spread the Word]

I agree that we need Iraq's oil. We have given blood for it.

[Guest Fed Up]

Exactly. That is what gets my goat. I like all Americans wanted vengence after 911. Bush made it seem like the Iraqis were the terrorist that blew up our buildings at first. So, I was like every one, and wanted to get the son of a doggess. Now I realize it was just for fraking oil. I am sure the administration saw this crisis fuel crisis coming. So they disguised the truth and gave our soldiers a reason to fight. The war on terror.

[Guest human_*]

Nope; this administration went on the best Intel available at the time.

 

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Exactly. That is what gets my goat. I like all Americans wanted vengence after 911. Bush made it seem like the Iraqis were the terrorist that blew up our buildings at first. So, I was like every one, and wanted to get the son of a doggess. Now I realize it was just for fraking oil. I am sure the administration saw this crisis fuel crisis coming. So they disguised the truth and gave our soldiers a reason to fight. The war on terror.

[Guest Fed Up]

Nope; this administration went on the best Intel available at the time.

 

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I am sure you remember when Blix accused the Bush administration of launching a smear campaign against him because he did not find evidence of WMD in Iraq. He said he refused to pump up his reports to the U.N. about Iraq's WMD programs.

 

In an interview with the London Guardian newspaper, Blix said "U.S. officials pressured him to use more damning language when reporting on Iraq's alleged weapons programs."

[Guest human_*]

fedup; Enjoy the read.

 

http://www.thetrumpet.com/index.php?q=5232.3519.0.0

[Guest Fed Up]

fedup; Enjoy the read.

 

http://www.thetrumpet.com/index.php?q=5232.3519.0.0

 

I hate politicians. I want to make that clear right up front. I believe that they are all full of ***brown trout***. When I have time I will read the Rockefeller report.

 

To be straight with you I started searching for concrete answers and I ended up back at this site.

 

http://www.dcmessageboards.com/index.php?s...ost&p=28881

 

I started looking around with that information and added my own finds. Do you own this web site?

[Luke_Wilbur]

DCpages runs this web site and this discussion is getting way off topic.

 

Secretary of Energy Samuel W. Bodman and Secretary of Agriculture Edward T. Schafer sent a letter on June 11, 2008 to Senator Jeff Bingaman addressing a number of questions related to biofuels, food, and gasoline and diesel prices. The letter is available at http://www.energy.gov

 

Without Biofuels, Gas Prices Would Increase $.20 to $.35 per Gallon.

 

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) estimates that gasoline prices would be between 20 cents to 35 cents per gallon higher without ethanol1, a first-generation biofuel.

For a typical household, that means saving about $150 to $300 per year.

For the U.S. overall, this saves gas expenditures of $28 billion to $49 billion based on annual gasoline consumption of roughly 140 billion gallons.

Ethanol use has exceeded the requirements of the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), established in the Energy Policy Act of 2005, demonstrating that refiners and gasoline marketers have an economic advantage to use more ethanol than is required by law.

Biofuels are Reducing America's Dependence on Oil.

 

Without biofuels, DOE estimates that the United States would have to use 7.2 billion more gallons of gasoline in 2008 in order to maintain current levels of travel (a 5 percent increase). This increased demand for gasoline would drive up the price Americans pay at the pump due to basic supply and demand.

Biofuels are Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions.

 

DOE scientists found that corn ethanol from the U.S. reduced greenhouse gas emission 19 percent compared with gasoline, when the full "life cycle" of the fuel is considered – from growing it to producing the fuel and burning it.

DOE scientists estimate that 13 million tons of greenhouse gases were avoided in 2007 due to biofuels production and use.

The next generation of biofuels—cellulosic—made from switchgrass, corn stover, wood chips and other non-food sources promises even more significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions than corn-based ethanol – reductions of more than 86 percent compared with gasoline.

This estimate relies on data on the current price difference between ethanol and gasoline and the elasticity of supply for petroleum. Consequently, a range is presented.

 

Today's Biofuels Account for Only a Small Percentage of the Increase in Global Food Prices.

 

Other factors are responsible for the majority of the increase in global food prices:

Higher oil and gas prices leading to increased costs of fertilizer, harvest, and transportation;

Increased demand as developing countries grow and people improve their diets;

Two years of bad weather and drought leading to poor harvests in parts of the world;

Export restrictions imposed by some countries.

Future Biofuels Will Alleviate Much of the Concern about Competition Between Food and Fuel.

 

Cellulosic biofuel feedstocks can be produced on land not suitable for crops or it can be collected from forest residues.

The Administration has announced more than $1 billion for the research, development, and demonstration of new biofuels technology, with a special focus on cellulosic biofuels. Funding supports:

Bioenergy Research Centers where scientists work together to make the conversion of plant fiber to fuel more cost-effective and efficient.

Commercial-scale and small-scale biorefineries, to chart the course toward commercialization of these technologies and test breakthroughs and novel processes.

[Guest Mason420]

Even if the U.S. ethanol industry were shut down tomorrow, rising Chinese demand for meat, and the ensuing livestock feed demand, will empty global grain stocks as soon as 2013. The US ethanol industry, which has been criticized as the primary cause of grain shortages and rising prices, increased its grain usage by 31 million tonnes during the 12 year period. By contrast, livestock grain demand to supply Chinese meat consumption increased by 199 million tonnes.

[Guest John McCain 2008]

John McCain Believes That The Increase In Food Prices Is Directly Related To Transportation Cost Increases And The Ethanol Mandate. Ethanol mandates in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 created a gold rush in grains requiring 5.4 billion gallons of ethanol to be included in our transportation fuels by 2008. The 2007 Energy bill increased this requirement to 9 billion gallons, causing an increase in the cost of all groceries. The mandates that Barack Obama helped create required minimum ethanol use and with the tariffs and subsidies in place, more corn was grown to meet the demand and less wheat and soy beans were planted. The result was higher costs for food for people and feed for livestock.