Bush To Clean Energy Leaders: Let Them Eat Corn
by David Sassoon - Mar 5th, 2008
in
The stage today was set perfectly for the President to show global leadership on renewable energy. The State Department had convened the largest international renewable energy conference ever to take place in America -- WIREC 2008 -- right there in Washington. Illustrious panelists, hundreds of side events, a booming trade show, thousands of attendees -- all set up to hear what the President would have to say.
What did he do with the non-renewable opportunity? He pulled a Marie Antoinette. His message to the assembled multitudes was this:
Let them eat corn.
He went on at length about his continued support for ethanol use despite evidence the corn-based fuel is driving up food prices, contributing to global hunger, and degrading the environment. A lose-lose-lose solution.
The energy bill he signed in December calls for refiners to replace 36 billion gallons of gasoline with ethanol by 2020, up from about 7 billion gallons today. About half of that will come from ethanol made with corn.
"That's good if you're a corn farmer, and it's good if you're concerned with national security," Bush said.
What if you're concerned with clean energy? Bush didn't say.
While he continued to push his message of technological development, he maintained his stance of active opposition to incentives for renewable energy development.
Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), Chairman of the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, explained in a statement released right after the President's remarks:
The president is opposing the Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation Tax Act of 2008 (H.R. 5351), which was passed in the House in February and will extend and expand tax incentives for renewable electricity, energy and fuel, as well as for plug-in hybrid cars, and energy efficient homes, buildings, and appliances.
These provisions are critical to creating hundreds of thousands of jobs. And the preservation of existing jobs relies on them too: a recent study showed that allowing the renewable energy incentives to expire would lead to about 116,000 job opportunities being lost in the wind and solar industries through the end of 2009.
As the President spoke, crude oil hit a new all time record price of $104 a barrel, but he was more concerned about the rising cost of corn.
"I'm beginning to hear complaints from cattleman about the price of corn," Bush said. "We're going to do something about it."
His comments were out of touch with main thrust of the conference, as the NY Times reported:
Mr. Bush spoke at the Washington International Renewable Energy Conference, a biannual gathering of thousands of energy officials and entrepreneurs from around the world, mostly focused on solar and wind power for the electric grid, and some transportation fuels from biomass, including biodiesel. Mr. Bush treated the group to a long discussion about the merits of nuclear power, which is not on the agenda here.
Marie Antoinette would have been impressed.
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