Kate Sheppard mentioned it in her tireless coverage of the Republican convention, but it bears highlighting again: The official GOP presidential platform calls for an end to the biofuel mandate.
Now, politics makes strange bedfellows, and sudden Republican opposition to biofuels stems largely from meat-industry shrieks about high grain prices. For example, Texas Gov. Rick Perry -- who learned crony capitalism at the knee of his mentor, G.W. Bush -- only found anti-ethanol religion after a bit of slap-and-tickle with his dear friend, the CEO of poultry giant Pilgrims Pride.
However, the biofuel mandate is egregious. There are better ways to stick it to Big Meat than devoting millions of acres of prime farmland, and dousing them with fertilizers and pesticides, to grow crops destined to feed cars. If left alone, within a few years, the mandate will divert about half of the annual U.S. corn crop into our gas tanks, likely wreaking yet more havoc on food prices, increasing pressure on rainforests (since more corn here means more soy in places like Brazil), and unleashing an accelerating gusher of agrichemicals and GMO seeds on farmland worldwide.
Now, the Republicans' zeal to "drill now" is of course insane and makes their overall energy policy a farce, but on the narrow point of ethanol, they shame the Democrats. I hope the Senator from Illinois, a major corn-producing state, can shake off his reflexive pro-ethanol stance and match the GOP on this one.
Et tu, Al? Franken gulps the ethanol-spiked Kool-Aid
Franken win means another likely Senate vote for climate action
Comments View as Flat
mreinbold Posted 9:57 am
05 Sep 2008
Oh, my God
I think I find myself agreeing with you on something. Is there something wrong with me?
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Biodiversivist Posted 11:10 am
05 Sep 2008
Implementing the biofuels mandate was a
bipartisan affair. Hopefully, removing it will also be one. One can only hope.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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GreyFlcn Posted 2:20 pm
05 Sep 2008
Heh
Well isn't that a turn of events.
-David Ahlport
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amazingdrx Posted 3:43 pm
05 Sep 2008
Good news
Better be ready for a possible McCain win.
Let's look at the bright side of armageddon.
Gas will soar to 10 bucks per gallon as Iran is invaded. A great impetus for plugin hybrids.
Home heating and electricity will soar too. Forcing investment in ground source heating/cooling and solar cogeneration.
Nuclear power building will impell lawsuits aplenty as NIMBYism takes over.
The draft, a necessary part of more invasion, occupation, and nation building, will create a huge war protest movement.
Good stuff. Vote McCain!
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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mreinbold Posted 12:05 am
06 Sep 2008
Thanks
I will be voting for Sarah Palin and her running mate.
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mreinbold Posted 12:06 am
06 Sep 2008
My agreement
is on the biofuels part.
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amazingdrx Posted 2:29 am
06 Sep 2008
Compromise
Obama crafts compromise, McCain wants to go forward with coal, nuclear, and oil/gas as it is used now. But just expand the supply somehow. By invading, occupying, and nation building country after country that happens to be located over oil?
Witness McCain's "Bomb, bomb, bomb..bomb, bomb Iran" joke?
The "drill, drill, drill" strategy is not a strategy, it's an anti-thinking slogan like "9/11"
has become.
We have seen how policy by sloganeering has worked. "WMD", "mushroom cloud", "war on terror", and similar sloganeering style non-policies.
Obama wants oil companies to drill where they have already been "given" (the Bush administration let them have leases without paying) leases to drill. But big oil wants a lock on every last drop of oil. Monopoly control of markets with no competition.
Leverage to kill any and all environmental oversight or enforcement of antitrust laws.
"Drill, drill, drill" what you already have been given to drill is a compromise.
The other part of the Obama compromise is to gradually reduce our dependence on oil to match the inevitable reduction in supply.
Over matching that supply/demand mismatch, by reducing demand even faster than the natural supply dries up, is a very good strategy to maintain our economic and political leadership position as a nation.
The US can become a force for freedom and environmentalism once again by maintaining that global leadership position.
Leadership in oily corporate militaristic imperialism, as the Bush administration has sought, is not working out.
5% of the world population acting as a global police force, with technology, research, development, and manufacturing rapidly outsourced offshore with the help of corporate tax breaks is not a formula for continued US success.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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mreinbold Posted 3:39 am
06 Sep 2008
amazingdrx
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
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vakibs Posted 10:22 pm
07 Sep 2008
What's the diff between a GW Bush & a S Palin?
lipstick
Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.
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vakibs Posted 11:18 pm
07 Sep 2008
do you vote for a GW Bush with lipstick ?
@mreinbold
If you do, then go ahead. It makes you kinda kinky, but we have no issues with you. But if you think otherwise, do explain the differences please :)
It is quite difficult for us to distinguish Mrs Palin's policies from those of a lipsticked George W Bush.
Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.
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amazingdrx Posted 11:49 pm
07 Sep 2008
Palin
Openly says the Ieaq war is a mission from "God" and the "He" controls it. Duuhbya only makes remarks like that in private.
In Palin we have a whole new level of potential theocracy. Also duuhbya may have proudly worn the confederate flag, briefly while stripping on the bar for his fraternity in college, but unlike Palin, he was never a menmber of a party that wanted to actually secede from the union.
You can be sure pretty duuhbya never shot a moose or bear either.
Palin is the real thing. A secesionist, fundamentalist, creationist, abstinence educationist, book banning, "God" hearing/fearing, animal killingest, drilliest, gas guzzlingest, armageddonist. Neeehaaaaww!
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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mreinbold Posted 12:15 am
08 Sep 2008
Palin adjectives
Wow, what a list! However, she was never a member of the secessionist party. Nice try. You people are in a panic.
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amazingdrx Posted 12:51 am
08 Sep 2008
Coverup
A blatant coverup einy. She was a member before she suddenly wasn't a member. As with earmarks and the bridge to nowhere, she was for them, before she was against them (then she kept the bridge to nowhere money).
Flip flopping much like a Salmon, debilitated by metal sulfide pollution from the proposed Pebble Mine project, that she is championing in Alaska.
It would be the largest open pit mining project in the US. With toxic tailings piling up behind fragile earthen tailings pond dams. Any earthquake or flood could potentially break these dams, destroying Salmon runs that provide family business fishing jobs. good jobs that she and her family once depended on for income.
Now that her income is from "contributions" and insider trading tips (on oil, gas, and mining stock), she has turned her back on Alaska fishing families and the ecosystem they depend on.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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mreinbold Posted 10:05 am
08 Sep 2008
amazingdrx
Perhaps you should contact the AIP.
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