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Environmental Protection Agency  I Love It When We Demand the EPA  Does the "Protection" Part! 40% of ALL CORN grown in the USA is for ethanol!! And since this corn "is not food," MUCH more pesticide and herbicide is allowed, which of course washes off into creeks, rivers and on into the Gulf of Mexico PUMPING UP THE DEAD ZONE. Oxygen starvation is really tough to take,  even if you are not already endangered. [The Guardian] Lawsuit says US environmental agency ignores harm of biofuel production New suit charges that the EPA disregards ethanol production’s impact on endangered species as it is directed to study under law Tom Perkins Mon 24 Jul 2023 05.30 EDT The US biofuel program is probably killing endangered species and harming the environment in a way that negates its benefits, but the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is largely ignoring those problems, a new federal  lawsuit  charges. The suit alleges the EPA failed to consider impacts on endangere...

Fool Me Once….. [Excerpts from a NYTimes.com article , interspersed with mild mannered commentary .] Agriculture Secretary Edward T. Schafer is preparing to walk into a buzz saw of criticism over American biofuels policy when he meets with world leaders to discuss the global food crisis next week. He’s carrying the Big Bush Talking Point, “Golly, ethanol from corn is only making a tiny difference in the price of food around the world.” See, the ethanol mandates and subsidies are just terrific for BS (Bush Supporters) in Big Ag, like Archer Daniels Midland, Cargill, Tyson and lots of millionaire big farmers. So the Bushies are going to fight hard against this new awareness that corn is a really bad feedstock for ethanol in terms of cost, climate benefits and unintended consequences. So… Mr. Schafer took the offensive at a press conference on Thursday that discussed the food summit, planned for Rome. He said an analysis by the Agriculture Department had dete...

... Or "Who's more important, corn farmers or the rest of us?" Now that it is perfectly clear that using food (corn in our case) to make fuel doesn't do anything good it was supposed to do, you would think Congress would hustle to undo the damage it is doing. Do you suppose? It's not helping the environment, it is hurting it. It's not freeing us from our dependence on foreign oil. It is contributing to the scarcity of and the rising prices for food. It is making big, rich agribiz companies even richer and making small farmers even poorer . It's forcing people with reservations about genetically modified food to throw in the towel because of desperate hunger . It is eating up tax dollars that could be doing a lot more good elsewhere. Well, Congress (no use even talking to the Bushies ), there you have it. Time to undo the damage done by wrong assumptions and too-quick response to lobbyists, no? Kill those ethano...

More " Ethanol, Schmethanol " Video fans... Here's a powerful little documentary on the human price of ethanol. Look down the list of vids on this site and prepare to have your soul rocked. I don't like the idea of Bloomberg running for prez as an Indy... But I like his website and his news channel. Both are straight-ahead, no hype and competent.

Here’s another of my fav issues, the stupidity of the ethanol craze. This from the Christian Science Monitor , one of my favorite newspapers. ATLANTA and BOSTON - A gallon of milk in Birmingham, Ala., is expected to cost $4.50 this summer, perhaps more. At Wetzel's Market in Glen Rock, Pa., the New York strip steaks that were on sale for $4.99 a pound last Fourth of July will be $6.99 this year. In Boston, some shoppers report checkout prices on certain items that are 30 percent higher now than last summer. "Prices are incredible," says Suzanna Wyman, shopping Monday at Shaw's Supermarket in Boston's Back Bay. "Milk, I heard, is going up even more.... I love fresh peppers and vegetables, but they're too much. Cereal is very expensive compared to what you used to be able to get it for." The reason people are smarting: Inflation in grocery aisles is up by more in the first six months of 2007 than in all of 2006. That means food co...

Starvation by Biofuels Ah, the absolute certainty of the Law of Unintended Consequences. In a nutshell: Food prices are rising because – surprise! – the demand for corn, soy and sugarcane/beets to make ethanol and biodiesel is driving up the cost of these basic food commodities. Quoting from The Wall Street Journal (my favorite newspaper): http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117608539258763747.html?mod=world_news_whats_news Soaring prices for farm goods, driven in part by demand for crop-based fuels, are pushing up the price of food world-wide and unleashing a new source of inflationary pressure. The rise in food prices is already causing distress among consumers in some parts of the world -- especially relatively poor nations like India and China. If the trend gathers momentum, it could contribute to slower global growth by forcing consumers to spend less on other items or spurring central banks to fight inflation by raising interest rates. …And, on the more human side:...