Posted on 06/14/2011 8:07:15 AM PDT by 92nina
...Coburn and Thune on the floor:
THUNE: “One of our colleagues from South Carolina has introduced an amendment to this bill which would end that, and I assume -- I don't know this for a fact -- that my colleague from Oklahoma would support that amendment. Which would do away with the Renewable Fuel Standard. Certainly.”
COBURN: “You obviously didn't hear what I was saying as you were conversing. I said I support ethanol. I wouldn't support that. And I said that. And I’ve been very up front with you in the past. You know what my position is on that. So the question is -- and I would ask him this question -- how do you fit what the people who get this $3 billion that you say it is going to have a negative impact -- the very people who get the $3 billion who say they don't want it -- why would they say that if it's going to have a negative impact on their industry?”
THUNE: “I would say to my colleague from Oklahoma I was not aware that he supports the RFS. If there is an amendment to strike the RFS offered – which there will be, and my colleague from Oklahoma, if I’m wrong in saying that – that you would oppose that amendment to strike the RFS?”
COBURN: “I will oppose that amendment but my worry is because of the process of the Senate, we may not get that amendment to vote on. And I think my colleague as part of the leadership on our side would recognize that we have a problem with amendments...”
Read more: http://www.atr.org/coburn-support-ethanol-a6238#ixzz1PGJTgnAo
(Excerpt) Read more at atr.org ...
Take this article and others I found to the fight to the Libs on their own turf; put the Left on the defensive at at Digg and at Reddit and in Delicious and Stumbleupon
Farmers want added-value ag. They don’t care what gets them there, whether it’s ethanol or some other vehicle, subsidized or not. They want bigger profit opportunities a la the free market, which our current farm policy puts a damper on.
What they don’t want is to ship their grain on a barge to China or feed it to animals for subsidized cheap meat while the remainder rots or has to be shipped on a barge. We can solve that by restructuring our farm and energy policy so that we don’t have to rely on ethanol as a band-aid.
I see both of your points; not as sure about the genetic engineering angle. And family farmers have been on the losing end for decades.
The thing about a free market is that one cannot predict where it takes a consumer. In the best possible of all worlds, customers would want the best quality for a reasonable price. In reality, people at the pump want whatever is lowest priced, dare I say, cheapest.
Therefore, Americans may go for poor quality food so long as the market value is low, and it doesn’t poison one that night, even if in the long-run, like ‘fast food,’ it kills...
Ethanol is a poor fuel and delivers 40% less energy than gasoline...so blending it in gasoline reduces gas mileage...hence we use more not less oil. Even with every acre that could grow corn planted ethanol cannot replace even a small part of our need for oil. The energy it takes to make a gallon of ethanol is likely more than what you can derive by using it as fuel. Lastly ethanol would not exist in a free market and is dependent on government subsidies from planting the seed to pumping it into your gas tank.
Good point about the government demands for ethanol in fuel. There would be no ethanol in gasoline in a true free market.
I broke one of Safire’s rules for writers by mixing metaphors; should not mentioned people at the pump when we were discussing food...it confused the issue.
Even subsidies wouldn't do it. The government has to force us to use it. I wouldn't run ethanol contaminated gasoline in my car [voluntarily] if it was 75¢ a gallon less than real gasoline.
And I use the term "contaminated" because a contaminant is something that adds nothing positive and causes negative effects.
I could have bought about 80 gallons of gas for what I paid (including towing) to get my car operating properly after ethanol caused problems. Pisses me off every time I enter a gas station.
When corn is is surplus there is little the scientists can do to make better corn. If though they scheme to cause shortages they can get $upport for their new products. Even better if they can corner the seed markets and stop up the supplies of traditional strains of corn. I know it is a tin foil hat story but it seems to fit.
Yep that is exactly what they did.
Corn subsidies to distillers and such plus political enforcement by EPA.
GM was going to happen anyway. Making corn produce more per acre with less input is not something farmers are going to refuse. The health ramifications of that worry me, but I guess we’re already on the ride and will have to see where it ends.
A web site of interest to everyone here:
I can’t vouch for the accuracy of all the listings, but it is certainly worth a look. Florida has a large listing. Unfortunately for me, KY does not.
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