Earth Equity News

Flawed Farm Bill Poised to Sail Through Congress. Commentary, Houston Chronicle, May 13, 2008. "President Bush promises to veto the five-year, $300 billion farm bill before Congress this week. The House and Senate have given him plenty of reasons to do so... [among which is that it] would cause new damage to the environment. Combined with Congress' uneconomical mandate that the nation make ethanol from corn, the subsidies encourage needless plowing up of prairie grasses, releasing more unwanted CO2 into the atmosphere. By encouraging more fertilized and watered acreage, the bill would increase the dead zone of nitrogen in the Gulf of Mexico. While costly, the bill contains few dollars for soil and wetlands conservation... [and] would cut but not eliminate tax credits for corn-based ethanol. This would not lower food prices much, if at all, [thereby leaving] in place the vast diversion of acreage from food to biofuels which is a prime factor in the [global] food crisis... [The] bill would also continue the restriction on ethanol imports that would lower the cost of Americans' food and fuel."