Bush Is Right On This One

Well, I think he's known about this since Katrina, but now there's an outcry from our populace that is questioning why the price is going up while our consumption is going down. I support Bush in his quest for lower gas prices, too.

I really hate those arabs located north of us in Canada. After all, they're the #1 supplier of oil to the good ol USA.

I know that he and Big Oil are largely to blame and this policy of belligerence and confrontation with oil producing countries such as Iraq, Iran, Venezuela, Russia. A little honey and a little less vinegar is a good policy expecially when you are the one that is finding themselves over a barrel...no pun intended.

There are long term solutions that need to be put in place such as alternate sources of energy. This is all well and good and exudes altruism and good intentions, but, this will take years. What happens with the now. The two candidates say 5 to 7 years...no way. My family along with many families will be on poor street by than. $4.00 a gallon...$5.00 a gallon...$6.00...when is enough already...enough already? While some genius tree-huggers came up with ethanol...a bane on ethanol...it's driven the grocery prices through the ceiling. Eating eggs is becoming akin to eating sirloin. Milk, coffee, bread, rice, meats...off the charts...corn is the key feed product for farms. When corn prices go up everything goes up. Enough with ethanol...it's a bonehead idea.

I always found it somewhat malignantly greedy to hoard our' oil while exploiting the oil of third world countries. Literally killing for oil to feed our' oil consumption while sitting on mountains of oil. Hypocritical to than claim ecological concerns and the saving of endangered species. Screw the ecology and endangered species of other countries. We want our' pie and eat it too. We need to use out' available resources until we can find and put in place more environmentally minded alternate forms of energy.

Nonetheless, don't be telling me to wait 5 or 3 or even 1 year. My pocket and stomach is quickly becoming seriously endangered.

Reuters/Zogby poll:

"Some 59.6 percent of Americans surveyed in the poll released on Wednesday said they would favor government efforts to boost domestic drilling and refinery construction to cool record prices."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080618/us_nm/usa_poll_drilling_dc_2

"We're talking about 10 billion barrels of domestic oil in an area where there has been a proven track record for environmentally responsible drilling. Yet a host of tall tales from environmental activists and like-minded journalists has made it a tough fight in Washington.

What they should have done is just insisted on the drillers using the environmentally sensitive techniques they have said they will use.

The current action in Congress involves adding ANWR drilling to the defense appropriations bill. Given continued high oil prices and political turmoil in many oil-producing nations, now seems to offer a good chance to get ANWR done. But this will finally occur only if the ANWR myths are exposed. Here are several:

ANWR drilling would harm the environment. Some perspective is helpful to understand the ecological insignificance of ANWR drilling. ANWR comprises 19 million acres in Northeast Alaska, 17.5 million of which are totally off-limits to drilling or any other kind of economic activity. This is why the news footage showing beautiful snowcapped mountains is misleading, because the drilling would not be allowed anywhere near those areas. Only the flat and featureless coastal plain would be affected, and even there only a small portion of its 1.5 million acres. The current version of the bill limits the surface disturbance to 2,000 acres, a small piece of a big coastal plain in a very big wildlife refuge in the biggest state in the Union.

An area more like the size of a postage stamp on a huge sheet of paper.

Oil wells would despoil one of the few remaining pristine places. Again, the vast majority of ANWR will be completely unaffected by drilling. It would occur only on a small part of the coastal plain where there already is some human habitation. There are plenty of truly pristine places in Alaska worth preserving, but ANWR's coastal plain isn't one of them. As it is, Alaska has 141 million acres of protected lands, an area equal to the size of California and New York combined.

Drilling is incompatible with National Wildlife Refuges. Drilling critics have tried to confuse wildlife refuges with national parks, wilderness areas and other more highly protected categories of federal lands. But national wildlife refuges typically allow limited mining, logging, drilling, ranching or other activities. Indeed, the statute creating ANWR contemplated future oil production on the coastal plain, subject to congressional approval. It is worth noting that another wildlife refuge in Alaska, the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge, has had drilling onsite for decades. The oil production there rarely makes the news because it has not caused any problems, even though Kenai has far more wildlife than ANWR.

Oil development harms local wildlife. An extensive track record proves otherwise. In addition to Kenai, Alaska has oil drilling in the Prudhoe Bay field, only 55 miles west of ANWR. Prudhoe Bay has produced more than 10 billion barrels of oil since the 1970s, which has been transported through the Alaska pipeline to the domestic market in the Lower 48 states. Decades of studies show this oil production has affected the environment negligibly. Environmental opponents of drilling cannot cite a single species driven toward extinction or even a decline in numbers attributable to Prudhoe Bay. That drilling also was done with decades-old technology and methods far less environmentally sensitive than ANWR would require.

Caribou herds will be devastated. Environmentalists have been particularly excessive in predicting dire harm to the herd of caribou that migrate through ANWR. But the caribou migrating through Prudhoe Bay have increased from 3,000 to 23,000 since drilling began in 1977.

Alaskans oppose ANWR drilling. In fact, polls regularly show 75 percent or more of Alaskans support drilling. This includes the native Alaskans who live near the potential drilling site. But the few who oppose drilling get most of the media attention. Alaskans know firsthand that resource extraction can co-exist with environmental protection. They also know how silly are the environmental gloom-and-doom predictions: They have heard such nonsense for decades.

If the average American, and his or her representative in Congress, knew the facts as well as the average Alaskan, ANWR drilling wouldn't be controversial."

http://donsingleton.blogspot.com/2005/12/alaska-oil-drilling-myths.html

I dont think there is a quick fix to this problem. but wouldnt you think that in the 70's when we first started having problems with the OPEC Nations, that this would of been the first thing to do..? To get the USA off of depending on these nations.. I dont think this started with Bush Felix, I think it started years ago, and no one wanted to deal with the problem..

"There are some empty seats on the environmental bandwagon that's careened through Congress these past few months. It took soaring gas prices and angry constituents to bring members to their senses, but a growing number of them are politely excusing themselves from the extreme "green" team to advocate offshore oil drilling. Yesterday, President Bush stepped into the ring, calling on Congress to do its part to bring about some relief at the pump.

First, the President has to rescind the executive order put in place by his father that blocks "coastal oil exploration." The burden would then rest squarely on Congress to give the go-ahead for offshore drilling. Rather than play his card and put the burden on Congress, President Bush held back, missing a golden opportunity to flex his political muscle and galvanize public support. Of course, the most frustrating part of the present energy crisis is that Republicans could have prevented this when they held a solid majority in the House and Senate. Instead, the GOP yielded to an extreme environmental view that pits nature against people, forcing families to choose between filling their tanks and filling their stomachs.

While it may have taken leadership a few years ago, Congress only needs to follow now because the American public is already there. According to a recent survey by the polling company inc., citizens favor U.S. drilling and lower gas prices over an environmental agenda by a 3-to-1 margin. I am not overly hopeful that Congress can even follow the public's lead on this. The response of the Democratic leadership to the $4.00+ a gallon gas prices has been to call for the nationalization of refineries. It is clear; voters are going to have to drive this issue in Washington."

From a Family Research Council e-mail.

He is wrong as usual , there are thousands of leases that are sitting idle and destroying the environment to make more profits for big oil is not worth it.

Besides there is no shortage , the speculators are just driving up prices because there is no regulation. They have to make as much as they can before the congress catches up.

bush is and has never been right on anything.

Vickey,

The problem here is not OPEC, though it's a convinient to scape goat them, most analyst, though, are not even going there. The problem, in part is our hostile and murderous policies toward the people of OPEC nations.

The lose of innocent lives in Iraq is in the million plus from an illegal, criminal invasion that continues to this day. The reason for this unprovoked and utterly uncalled-for act of aggression against a sovereign people and their' nation was in large measure to steal their' oil. Even as we speak the neocons we enabled have the puppet regime we put in place under threat to sign over their' nations' resources...or else.

It is the highest order of pillaging and plundering in pure daylight...hold-up at high noon. We are threatening the Iranian with nuking them into obliteration if they don't bow to our' commands. We are actively trying to over throw several South American governments. None of this is produces an atmosphere for cooperation and goodwill with countries and peoples whom we consider ourselves superior to.

The fact is that OPEC production has not gone down...except in Iraq, of course, for obvious reasons...yet, demand has increased dramatically from other industrialized and westernized countries. We may think that only we have a right to the pie, but, we're not. Other countries are competing for the available output. Meanwhile, we are sitting atop billions of our' own oil resourses...hoarding and like vulture threatening other countries.

This is not about OPEC...far from that...this is about us. This is about greed and wanting your' pie and eating it, too. It's time we stopped hoarding and start using that vast amount of resources we have and stop looking to get at our' neighbors resources.

We haven't had problems with OPEC...OPEC has had problems with us. Vestiges of the old colonial system. There was only one villain in the colonial system...the despoilers and robbers who treated people and colonies as their' servants and slaves. The purpose of third world people was to make us and keep us rich while they starved. All the troubles in the southern hemispheres...in Africa, Asia, South America, the Middle East can be traced directly to the European ( and it's spawn the U.S.) colonial system. It's a system of enslavement, despoiling the natural resources of brown nations, and total disregard for anyone but ourselves.

We need to become self-sufficent...in the sense of using our' resources and finding new technology and means of energy and stop living off the resources of poorer nations or assuming that other nations shouldn't share in the pie that doesn't even belong to us. Goodwill and a balance in benefits will help us continue to get good deals in the global market...bully tactics simply dont' work anymore. The savages have been civilized and have become just as greedy as their' masters...but, masters no more.

The whole world knows and our' honest economist know that the bed we now lie in was made my us. Not OPEC, not China, not anyone, but, we ourselves. If I have tomatoes in my back yard why do I keep insisting on stealing the tomatoes in my neighbors' backyard? Why not just honestly negotiating with my neighbor to supplement my supplies. Thsi way everyone get's a piece of the pie...but, of course, no...we want it all. We are the superior people and deserve it all.

Well, you certainly are wrong as usual, Don...the Republican hater no-matter-what.

Why don't you try thinking out of the partisan' box for once in your' life. You can disagree, of course, and you may even be right and others wrong...but, when you set it in such narrow terms and generalizations...it's a tough sell.

Here's the reality: Drilling is a fraud.

Honestly, this isn't an environmental argument. As much as I want to stop global warming, save our pristine wilderness, and generally be good to the earth, this argument has nothing to do with that. And, surprisingly enough, as much as McCain is simply flipping his position because of political expediency, I'm not going to call him on it. (Don't believe me? Here's McCain vs. McCain on drilling policy.)

Gas is at $4 a gallon. People have been feeling the pinch for a long time now. They want their politicians to do something about it, and John McCain and George Bush have offered offshore drilling as a cure.

The simple reality is, drilling just will never, ever do what McCain and Bush think it will.

Here's why…

Reason #1: Offshore Drilling Won't Increase Oil Supplies For 7-10 Years

That's right, even if we repeal all bans on drilling anywhere in the U.S., we won't see the benefits for almost a decade:

That's the estimate from the American Petroleum Institute, the oil industry trade group. Major environmental groups think the increased supply would be at least that distant before arrival, and say it mostly would benefit Big Oil.

"It would take a decade to bring new leases into production, and then they would only line the coffers of the oil industry," said Carl Pope, the Sierra Club's executive director.

Reason #2: Offshore Drilling Only Makes Financial Sense When Oil Prices Are High

Offshore drilling is expensive:

However, analysts on all sides agree that drilling faces political, regulatory and economic hurdles. Individual states could forbid it. If exploration were allowed, permits would have to be granted, and before that environmental concerns must be addressed. Drilling also would have to make economic sense: Offshore drilling is expensive, and the more remote the site, the more costly it is.

Therefore, offshore drilling would only make economic sense if the oil tapped could be sold at a high price. Once the price of oil drops (which it is unlikely to do, but let's think hypothetically), offshore drills lose money, they get shut down, and prices go up again. Offshore drilling will not solve our gas price problem.

Reason #3: There's Probably Not A Lot Of Oil Out There

Bush and McCain tout drilling as a way towards energy independence. It's not; it's only a very short-term fix. Once we get the drilling going (remember, 7-10 years), there isn't much oil to drill:

The Interior Department offered a wide range of estimates of how much oil might be within reach of U.S. offshore drilling in a 2006 report. It estimated that the Outer Continental Shelf could hold 115.4 billion barrels. However, it also estimated that recoverable reserves off U.S. coasts in areas now banned from production probably hold only about 19 billion barrels.

…

The world consumes about 86 million barrels a day. The U.S. share of that is about 20.6 million barrels, 60 percent of them from foreign sources.

One thousand million barrels equals 1 billion, so if there are 19 billion barrels in the areas McCain would open to drilling, that's enough to provide about 920 days, or about 2.5 years, of current U.S. consumption.

That's right. Drill in all the places you can't drill now and you get (gong!) a whopping 2.5 years worth of oil. And that's assuming consumption levels stay static, which they have never done.

Reason #4: Oh, And There Are No Ships To Carry That Oil

Even if you did build the wells (7-10 years), make it economically feasable to keep them open (that means high oil prices), and tap all that oil (only 2.5 years worth), you wouldn't be able to find a ship to drill the oil and ship it back to shore for use:

In recent years, this global shortage of drill-ships has created a critical bottleneck, frustrating energy company executives and constraining their ability to exploit known reserves or find new ones. Slow growth in oil supplies, at a time of soaring demand, has been a major factor in the spike of oil and gasoline prices.

Mr. Bush called on Congress Wednesday to end a longstanding federal ban on offshore drilling and open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil exploration, arguing that the steps were needed to lower gasoline prices and bolster national security. But even as oil trades at more than $135 a barrel — up from $68 a year ago — the world's existing drill-ships are booked solid for the next five years. Some oil companies have been forced to postpone exploration while waiting for a drilling rig, executives and analysts said.

You can even explore for new oil fields for 5 years due to lack of ships!

Reason #5: Oil Speculation Is NOT Driving Oil Prices

"But wait," the neocons say, "Isn't the high price of oil speculative? Won't opening up new reserves, or even moving to open up new reserves, wring speculation out of the market and bring prices down fast?"

No, it won't. Why? Well, a lot of people think speculation has nothing to do with the high prices. Oil prices are up because demand is up and supply is down.

And of course, if we wanted to wring out what little speculation is present in the market, wouldn't a big investment in real solutions like alternative, non-oil based energy do the same thing?

—————————

This. Is. A. Fraud.

There is no way offshore drilling in the United States will lower gas prices. Ever! If anything, it will prolong our addiction to oil and make the eventual break from it worse.

Now, I understand why Bush and McCain might seize on this ridiculous policy to push on the American people. Gas prices are indeed high, and it is affecting the price of everything. America is hurting, and people want relief immediately. They turn to politicians for answers, and politically expedient politicians like Bush and McCain give them a flashy but ineffective solution.

Honestly, there's probably only one solution for high oil prices: Use less oil. Curb demand and not only will prices fall, but you'll spend less of your hard earned money on gas. But that's not the kind of message some voters want to hear.

There is a ray of hope, however. It seems most Americans, when presented with the choice between expanded drilling and conservation, pick the answer that will actually give them relief:

Honestly, the messaging is pretty simple. For one, nobody like Big Oil, and McCain - like Bush - is in their pocket. If we can push that argument, plus the choice between conservation and expanded drilling, America is behind us.

Conservation is the only quick fix. The rest is fraud.

Update [Josh]: The Sierra Club has a petition telling Congress not to fall for this "Washington gimmick". Sign it.

I'm right more often than your boy bush , who as I stated has NEVER been right on anything.

Just because you hate a woman's RIGHT to choose is no reason to get in bed with bush ,all other repugniCONs , and their masters , the oil companies/big business Felix.

I don't have a boy, but, you do...and your' nose is so up his' butt you can't even think straigt.

No one has a right to choose to destroy another life...you supporter of the killing of the most helpless and innocent of victims. Go back to kissing Obama's ass and get out of my life. You're not worth anybodies time...as despicable as the neocons and BushCo are you are even lower.

UPDATE:

Oil Crisis Is Solvable

By Linda Chavez
June 20, 2008

There is only one way to drive down the rising cost of gasoline for the long term: significantly increase the domestic supply of oil. We are the only nation in the world with access to known oil deposits on our own land or off our shores that essentially refuses to tap those resources. The main stumbling block is a lack of political consensus, which is in especially short supply in an election year. Instead of coming up with real solutions to our growing energy crisis, the Democrats in Congress would rather rail against the oil companies. But oil company executives don't set the price of oil -- and taxing their companies more won't do anything to lower the cost of gasoline at the pump.

President Bush has now stepped into the fray by asking Congress to lift a ban on offshore drilling, remove prohibitions on leasing federal lands for oil shale exploration, and permit oil exploration in a small portion of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). He also called for expediting the process to build new oil refineries. His plan is not a short-term fix but one that could put the United States back in the business of taking care of our own needs rather than relying on supplies from unstable countries and avaricious cartels.

When the original ban on drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf was enacted in the early 1980s, oil exploration at sea was a far riskier business. Advances in technology have now made it possible to explore for oil in ways that are less damaging to the environment, protect delicate coral reefs, and reduce the chance of environmentally disastrous oil spills. But the ban on exploration remains in place as if drilling today were no different than it was a quarter century ago. Estimates are that offshore drilling could produce about 18 billion barrels of oil, but we won't really know until we launch full-scale exploration.

By far the most promising source of domestic oil can be found in shale deposits in the Rocky Mountains, but here, too, Congress has put up impediments to getting access to that oil. One large deposit -- the Green River Basin that stretches through Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming -- is believed to hold 800 billion barrels of oil, the equivalent of a century's worth of projected U.S. oil imports. Until recently, recovering oil from shale rock had been too expensive to make its extraction feasible. Advances in technology -- and the high price oil now commands -- now make this source of oil more economical. But again, Congress stands in the way. Just last year, Democrats inserted language in an omnibus spending bill that blocked oil shale leasing on all federal lands.

The most controversial of President Bush's proposals is his plan to open up a tiny portion of ANWR to drilling. Even Sen. McCain has opposed oil exploration in ANWR -- a position he should seriously reconsider given the current energy crisis. There are almost 20 million acres in ANWR, but only about 2,000 acres -- 0.01 percent of the total -- are needed for drilling. And this small territory could produce around 10 billion barrels of oil. Congress passed legislation to allow drilling in ANWR more than a decade ago, with bipartisan support, but President Clinton vetoed it. Had drilling started then, we'd likely be paying less at the pump today.

President Bush also called for expediting permits to build new oil refineries, another step in the process of lowering gasoline prices. We now import significant amounts of already refined gasoline because we lack capacity here to refine enough crude oil to meet our needs. The last new refinery was built three decades ago, largely because of challenges to permit applications. The president's plan would send all legal challenges to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals for a decision within 60 days of the permit's approval, and he would authorize the secretary of energy to issue binding deadlines for permit decisions to speed the process. He also called on Congress to allow refineries to be built on abandoned military bases.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was quick to condemn the president's proposals, calling them "the same old ideas meant to pad the pockets of Big Oil." But that kind of rhetoric won't do anything to bring down the rising price of gasoline, which threatens not just family budgets but the entire U.S. economy. It's time Congress put election-year politics aside and get serious about allowing domestic oil production to solve this crisis."

http://www.gopusa.com/commentary/lchavez/2008/lc_06202.shtml

On the corn...

NEW YORK - Raging Midwest floodwaters that swallowed crops and sent corn and soybean prices soaring are about to give consumers more grief at the grocery store.

In the latest bout of food inflation, beef, pork, poultry and even eggs, cheese and milk are expected to get more expensive as livestock owners go out of business or are forced to slaughter more cattle, hogs, turkeys and chickens to cope with rocketing costs for corn-based animal feed.

The floods engulfed an estimated 2 million or more acres of corn and soybean fields in Iowa, Indiana, Illinois and other key growing states, sending world grain prices skyward on fears of a substantially smaller corn crop. The government will give a partial idea of how many corn acres were lost before the end of the month, but experts say the trickle-down effect could be more dramatic later this year, affecting everything from Thanksgiving turkeys to Christmas hams.

Rod Brenneman, president and chief executive of Seaboard Foods, a pork supplier in Sawnee Mission, Kan. that produces 4 million hogs a year, said high corn costs were already forcing producers in his industry to cut back on the number of animals they raise.

"There's definitely liquidation of livestock happening," and that will cause meat prices to rise later this year and into 2009, said Brenneman, who is also the vice chairman of the American Meat Institute.

Brenneman's cost for feeding a single hog has shot up $30 in the past year because of record-high prices for corn and soybeans, the main ingredients in animal feed. Passing that increase on to consumers would tack an extra 15 cents per pound onto a pork chop.

It's a similar story for U.S. beef producers, who now spend a whopping 60-70 percent of their production costs on animal feed and are seeing that number rise daily as corn prices hover near an unprecedented $8 a bushel, up from about $4 a year ago.

"This is not sustainable. The cattle industry is going to have to get smaller," said James Herring, president and CEO of Amarillo, Tex.-based Friona Industries, which buys 20 million bushels of corn each year to feed 550,000 cattle.

Corn's prices were already rising before the floods, driven up 80 percent over the past year as developing countries like China and India scramble for grains to feed people and livestock. U.S. production of ethanol, an alternative fuel that can be made with corn, has also pushed prices higher, prompting livestock owners to lobby Washington to roll back ethanol mandates.

Before the floods, corn farmers were enjoying record profits selling the grain to feed animals and for use in cereals and as a sweetener in soda and candy. But a sharply smaller corn crop could wipe out those gains.

In Iowa, the No. 1 U.S. corn grower, floods inundated about 9 percent of corn crops, representing about 1.2 million acres — almost 1.5 percent of the country's anticipated harvest.

In Indiana, another 9 percent of corn and soybean crops were flooded, potentially costing farmers up to $840 million in lost earnings, Indiana Agriculture Director Andy Miller said.

Floodwaters also tossed farm equipment, sprayed cornfields with debris and silt and sucked away large chunks of topsoil. For livestock owners and meat producers, the damage may be felt long after the corn grows back.

Even before the floods, Tyson Foods was complaining that high grain prices would drive up its costs by $600 million this year. The world's largest poultry company has already raised its prices over the past year, and expects to keep raising them, CEO Dick Bond told analysts at a conference in May.

Higher feed prices will eventually filter through to the cost of milk, cheese and yogurt, too, since 65 to 75 percent of a dairy farmers' production costs are for feed, said Chris Galen, a spokesman for the National Milk Producers Federation.

With the cost of animal feed only going higher, many poultry and dairy farmers are starting to look for cheaper alternatives.

Nebraska dairy farmer Dan Rice, who has 1,500 cows, said one alternative is to buy some of the byproducts of cereal or flour production, but they're not nearly as productive compared to corn.

"If we all feed less corn and get less production, then the price at the grocery stores are going to go up," said Rice, who supplies milk to grocery stores in Omaha and around Kansas City.

Without easy ways to cut costs, many livestock producers will have little choice but to slaughter more animals and send them to market.

"We're in survival mode now," said Paul Hill, chairman of West Liberty Foods, a turkey processor based in West Liberty, Iowa. He estimated U.S. turkey producers will reduce their flocks by 10 to 15 percent nationwide, a cutback that will send consumer prices dramatically higher.

"The cost of Thanksgiving and Christmas turkeys will go up this year, and maybe even more next year," said Hill, who is also the chairman of the National Turkey Federation.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080622/ap_on_bi_ge/midwest_flooding_food_prices

Barack + Ethanol = Special Interest

Obama Camp Closely Linked With Ethanol

When VeraSun Energy inaugurated a new ethanol processing plant last summer in Charles City, Iowa, some of that industry's most prominent boosters showed up. Leaders of the National Corn Growers Association and the Renewable Fuels Association, for instance, came to help cut the ribbon — and so did Senator Barack Obama.

Then running far behind Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton in name recognition and in the polls, Mr. Obama was in the midst of a campaign swing through the state where he would eventually register his first caucus victory. And as befits a senator from Illinois, the country's second largest corn-producing state, he delivered a ringing endorsement of ethanol as an alternative fuel.

Mr. Obama is running as a reformer who is seeking to reduce the influence of special interests. But like any other politician, he has powerful constituencies that help shape his views. And when it comes to domestic ethanol, almost all of which is made from corn, he also has advisers and prominent supporters with close ties to the industry at a time when energy policy is a point of sharp contrast between the parties and their presidential candidates.

In the heart of the Corn Belt that August day, Mr. Obama argued that embracing ethanol "ultimately helps our national security, because right now we're sending billions of dollars to some of the most hostile nations on earth." America's oil dependence, he added, "makes it more difficult for us to shape a foreign policy that is intelligent and is creating security for the long term."

Nowadays, when Mr. Obama travels in farm country, he is sometimes accompanied by his friend Tom Daschle, the former Senate majority leader from South Dakota. Mr. Daschle now serves on the boards of three ethanol companies and works at a Washington law firm where, according to his online job description, "he spends a substantial amount of time providing strategic and policy advice to clients in renewable energy."

Mr. Obama's lead advisor on energy and environmental issues, Jason Grumet, came to the campaign from the National Commission on Energy Policy, a bipartisan initiative associated with Mr. Daschle and Bob Dole, the Kansas Republican who is also a former Senate majority leader and a big ethanol backer who had close ties to the agribusiness giant Archer Daniels Midland.

Not long after arriving in the Senate, Mr. Obama himself briefly provoked a controversy by flying at subsidized rates on corporate airplanes, including twice on jets owned by Archer Daniels Midland, which is the nation's largest ethanol producer and is based in his home state."

more at: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/23/us/politics/23ethanol.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin

McCain stance (from same article) is quite different:

"Ethanol is one area in which Mr. Obama strongly disagrees with his Republican opponent, Senator John McCain of Arizona. While both presidential candidates emphasize the need for the United States to achieve "energy security" while also slowing down the carbon emissions that are believed to contribute to global warming, they offer sharply different visions of the role that ethanol, which can be made from a variety of organic materials, should play in those efforts.

Mr. McCain advocates eliminating the multibillion-dollar annual government subsidies that domestic ethanol has long enjoyed. As a free trade advocate, he also opposes the 54-cent-a-gallon tariff that the United States slaps on imports of ethanol made from sugar cane, which packs more of an energy punch than corn-based ethanol and is cheaper to produce.

"We made a series of mistakes by not adopting a sustainable energy policy, one of which is the subsidies for corn ethanol, which I warned in Iowa were going to destroy the market" and contribute to inflation, Mr. McCain said this month in an interview with a Brazilian newspaper, O Estado de São Paulo. "Besides, it is wrong," he added, to tax Brazilian-made sugar cane ethanol, "which is much more efficient than corn ethanol."

Mr. Obama, in contrast, favors the subsidies, some of which end up in the hands of the same oil companies he says should be subjected to a windfall profits tax. In the name of helping the United States build "energy independence," he also supports the tariff, which some economists say may well be illegal under the World Trade Organization's rules but which his advisers say is not.

Many economists, consumer advocates, environmental experts and tax groups have been critical of corn ethanol programs as a boondoggle that benefits agribusiness conglomerates more than small farmers. Those complaints have intensified recently as corn prices have risen sharply in tandem with oil prices and corn normally used for food stock has been diverted to ethanol production.

"If you want to take some of the pressure off this market, the obvious thing to do is lower that tariff and let some Brazilian ethanol come in," said C. Ford Runge, an economist specializing in commodities and trade policy at the Center for International Food and Agricultural Policy at the University of Minnesota. "But one of the fundamental reasons biofuels policy is so out of whack with markets and reality is that interest group politics have been so dominant in the construction of the subsidies that support it."

Corn ethanol generates less than two units of energy for every unit of energy used to produce it, while the energy ratio for sugar cane is more than 8 to 1. With lower production costs and cheaper land prices in the tropical countries where it is grown, sugar cane is a more efficient source."

See link given above.