Earth Equity News

Obama's Corn Dance. By Larry Rohter, NYTimes, June 23, 2008. "And as befits a senator from Illinois, the country's second largest corn-producing state, [Sen. Barack Obama] delivered a ringing endorsement of ethanol as an alternative fuel [when VeraSun Energy inaugurated its new ethanol processing plant last summer in Charles City, Iowa]... When it comes to domestic ethanol... [Obama] also has advisers and prominent supporters with close ties to the industry... [His] 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 [former Majority Leader Tom] Daschle [from South Dakota] 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... the nation's largest ethanol producer... based in his home state... Mr. McCain advocates eliminating the multibillion-dollar annual government [ethanol] subsidies... As a free trade advocate, he also opposes the 54-cent-a-gallon tariff that the U.S. 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... 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... He also supports the tariff."