ethanol mandates

What’s In Store for Egypt After Mubarak’s Departure?

by Hans Bader on February 12, 2011 · 1 comment

in Agriculture, Energy, Ethanol, International, Trade

Recently, Egypt’s pro-American dictator, Hosni Mubarak, was forced to resign after 30 years in power, and forced to give way to a military-controlled government.  Victor Davis Hanson has some interesting reflections on the revolution in Egypt at this link.

Earlier, we discussed the role of ethanol subsidies and biofuel mandates in increasing support for the Muslim Brotherhood, an anti-American group opposed to Mubarak, at this link.  By indirectly increasing wheat prices, ethanol subsidies drove up unrest in Cairo’s slums, which are more supportive of the Muslim Brotherhood than they are of Egypt’s historically much smaller pro-western democracy movements.  (Egyptians historically have spent nearly half their income just on food — more than that in the slums of Cairo and Alexandria, Egypt’s largest cities).

The Washington Post‘s editorial board and various columns in the Post, like one by Professor Tim Searchinger, agreed about the folly of ethanol subsidies and their role in contributing to misery and unrest among Egypt’s poorest.

Egyptian Riots Fueled by Ethanol Subsidies and Biofuel Mandates

by Hans Bader on February 4, 2011 · 5 comments

in Agriculture, Energy, Ethanol, International, Trade

As world food prices hit a record high, protests in Egypt demand the removal of the country’s pro-American dictator, Hosni Mubarak. No one can predict with certainty whether his removal after 30 years in power would lead to a constitutional democracy, or a theocratic despotism. The likelihood of an even worse regime replacing Mubarak is real, and has been increased by the widespread diversion of cropland to produce biofuels rather than food. That in turn has led to rising food prices that have fueled unrest among the poor in the teeming slums of Egypt’s capital city of Cairo.

Increased food prices have also led to increasing support for the anti-American Muslim Brotherhood, which has ties to the terrorist group Hamas: it provides relief and welfare services in the slums, increasing its popularity in times of economic distress, and it enjoys greater support among the country’s poor than among Egypt’s smaller and more Western-oriented middle class.

The Telegraph, a leading English newspaper, calls the recent unrest in Egypt and the Middle East “food revolutions.” It points out that “biofuel mandates” have “diverted a third of the US corn crop into ethanol for cars,” reducing food supplies and driving up food prices. “So instead of growing wheat, our farmers are growing corn in order to cash in on ethanol subsidies.”

Egypt is the world’s largest wheat importer, and  imports “more than half of its food supply.” As CNBC notes, “It is food inflation that is” most fueling opposition to the Mubarak regime among the country’s poor. Egyptians have historically spent over 40 percent of their income just on food.

As Slate notes, the “anti-Western” Muslim Brotherhood “remains the only political movement” in Egypt that is “capable of providing nongovernmental charitable services. This gives it a reliable political base in the slums of Cairo and Alexandria.” Rising food prices have cemented that base, and driven previously apathetic slum-dwellers into the streets, shifting the locus of opposition away from the more Westernized middle class.

Obama has been an avid supporter of ethanol subsidies, with close links to the ethanol lobby, unlike Obama’s 2008 opponent, John McCain, who opposed ethanol subsidies. The Obama administration has pushed ethanol mandates, even though they have a history of helping spawn famines and food riots overseas. For example, the costly climate-change legislation backed by the administration contained ethanol subsidies. The administration supports them even though ethanol makes gasoline costlier and dirtier, increases ozone pollution, and increases the death toll from smog and air pollution. Ethanol production also results in deforestation, soil erosion, and water pollution.

Leading environmentalists have lamented the devastating impact of ethanol and biofuel subsidies on the global environment.

Even commentators with close links to the Obama administration have admitted that ethanol subsidies are a terrible idea. Matt Yglesias at the liberal Center for American Progress, which has close ties to the administration, admits that “ethanol subsidies aren’t a good way to clean the environment, but they’re a great way of raising the price of agricultural commodities.” Economists more critical of the Obama administration, such as Larry Kudlow, have been scathingly critical of ethanol subsidies, linking them to the recent unrest in Egypt and “skyrocketing food prices.”

Ethanol mandates also contributed to starvation, food riots, and a growing anti-American uprising in Afghanistan back in 2008.

Ethanol and the Egyptian Riots

by Hans Bader on February 2, 2011 · 2 comments

in Agriculture, Energy, Environment, Ethanol, International

Ethanol subsidies helped cause the Egyptian riots, contributing to the “skyrocketing food prices” that triggered “the massive unrest now occurring in Egypt,” argues economist and syndicated columnist Larry Kudlow, in “Bernanke and Ethanol Sink Egypt.” “In 2001, only 7 percent of U.S. corn went to ethanol. By 2010, the ethanol share was 39 percent. So instead of growing wheat, our farmers are growing corn in order to cash in on ethanol subsidies.” That harmed Egypt, a major wheat importer. Another factor was the Federal Reserve’s inflationary monetary policy, whose effects have already been felt overseas: “In dollar terms, the price of wheat has soared 114 percent over the past year. Corn has surged 88 percent.” (The Fed is even printing money so that the government can buy its own bonds to facilitate record deficit spending.)

Commentators across the political spectrum worry about the effect of ethanol subsidies.  The environmentalist Jeremy Bloom has an article titled “Egypt’s Ethanol Revolution: Bad U.S.  Policy Driving Up Worldwide Food Price.” Rob Port asks, “Are Ethanol Subsidies the Root Cause of Egyptian Protests?”

As I previously noted, the rise in food prices in Egypt seems to have strengthened the anti-American Muslim Brotherhood, rather than the small pro-western reform movements in Egypt, by radicalizing the slums of Cairo, whose residents sometimes rely on relief provided by the Muslim Brotherhood (the only Egyptian political movement that provides non-governmental charitable services), and who have little connection to the Westernized middle class.

Obama’s State of the Union: A Blueprint for Crony Capitalism and Costly Educational Failures

by Hans Bader on January 26, 2011

in Economy, Employment, Energy, Environment, Politics as Usual, Stimulus to Nowhere

In his State of the Union address, President Obama called for even more spending on his cronies — what he euphemistically referred to as “investments” in “clean energy technology.” Such spending benefits companies that donate millions to liberal politicians, like GE,  which recently spent  $65.7 million on lobbying to extract special favors from the government.

As the Washington Post notes, GE received massive taxpayer bailouts on special, preferential terms not available to other companies:

General Electric, the world’s largest industrial company, has quietly become the biggest beneficiary of one of the government’s key rescue programs for banks. At the same time, GE has avoided many of the restrictions facing other financial giants getting help from the government. The company did not initially qualify for the program.  .  .But regulators soon loosened the eligibility requirements, in part because of behind-the-scenes appeals from GE.

GE’s CEO, Jeffrey Immelt, is the “Chairman of the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness.”

The “clean energy” spending Obama wants includes “initiatives aimed at building the renewable-energy sector — which received billions of dollars in stimulus funding.”

This is a bad sign for American workers, because such green jobs programs have wiped out thousands of American jobs in the past.  The $800 billion stimulus package used “green-jobs” subsidies to send American jobs overseas.  79 percent of those subsidies went to foreign firms, such as an Australian firm that imported Japanese wind turbines, effectively outsourcing American jobs.  (The stimulus package also wiped out jobs in America’s export sector.)  Moreover, some “green jobs” funding actually damages the environment, like ethanol subsidies:  ethanol mandates actually harm the environment, yet the Obama administration apparently considers them to be a “green jobs” program.

Echoing earlier reports that he would advocate “new government spending” on education, Obama attacked the idea of scaling back massive increases in education spending. He called cutting education spending “like lightening an overloaded airplane by removing its engine.” Lost in his hyperbole was the fact that America already spends much more per capita on education than most other wealthy industrialized countries, with worse results.  As spending has exploded, college students are spending much less time studying and reading than they used to.

Dumping more money on the educational system is unlikely to spur economic growth, since so many college students learn little in college, are not interested in learning, and only go to college in order to get paper credentials rather than an education. Obama wants all Americans to attend at least one year of college, saying in his address that “higher education must be within reach of every American.”

Those paper credentials are increasingly useless to many who obtain them.  Most people who went to college because of rising college-attendance rates in recent years wound up in unskilled jobs (including 5,057 janitors who have Ph.D’s or other advanced degrees), while tuition skyrockets. (100 colleges charge at least $50,000 a year, compared to five in 2008-09.)  Bush increased federal education spending 58 percent faster than inflation, while Obama seeks to double it.

Colleges are so awash in money that many elite colleges are using it to rapidly expand educational bureaucracies.  For example, Wake Forest University increased spending on administrators by 600 percent.

Unlike other countries, which focus on educating engineers and other economically-productive occupations, America focuses on superficial, ideologically-fashionable liberal-arts majors.  The Obama administration seems more concerned about the gender ratios in college science departments than the small number of Americans who go into science, and is now contemplating caps on the number of male science students under Title IX to promote what it perceives as gender equity.  Such caps would be based on the Obama administration’s faulty interpretation of Title IX.

Obama Policies Fuel Global Food Crisis Through Ethanol Mandates, While Fostering Obesity in America

by Hans Bader on January 22, 2011

in Agriculture, Energy, Environment, Ethanol, International

Food prices are soaring all over the world. The global food chain is reportedly stretched to the limit, fueled by the fact “that more than a third of the corn produced in the U.S is now used to make ethanol.” As a result of such “bio-fuels” subsidies, one of the world’s largest food producers predicts a “global food crisis.”

Unfortunately, the Obama administration has long pushed ethanol subsidies, even though such subsidies have a history of spawning famines and food riots overseas. For example, the costly climate-change legislation backed by the administration contained massive ethanol subsidies.

The administration is now forcing up the ethanol content of gasoline through EPA regulations, heedless of the fact that ethanol makes gasoline costlier and dirtier, increases ozone pollution, and increases the death toll from smog and air pollution. Ethanol production also results in deforestation, soil erosion, and water pollution.

Back in 2008, leading environmentalists lamented the devastating impact of ethanol subsidies on the global environment and the world’s poor. They noted that thanks to ethanol, “deadly food riots” had already “broken out in dozens of nations,” such as “Haiti and Egypt.” And they pointed out that “food-to-fuel mandates are leading to increased environmental damage. First, producing ethanol requires huge amounts of energy — most of which comes from coal. Second, the production process creates a number of hazardous byproducts, and some production facilities are reportedly dumping these in local water sources. . .Most troubling, though, is that the higher food prices caused in large part by food-to-fuel mandates create incentives for global deforestation, including in the Amazon basin. . . huge swaths of forest are being cleared for agricultural development. The result is devastating: We lose an ecological treasure and critical habitat for endangered species, as well as the world’s largest ‘carbon sink.’ . . .the net impact of the food-to-fuel push will be an increase in global carbon emissions.”

By increasing world food prices, ethanol subsidies also fostered Islamic extremism in poor countries like Afghanistan that import much of their food.

Ethanol subsidies are not the only way that the Obama administration is harming poor people. The administration is also discouraging poor Americans from purchasing cheap, nutritious food. For example, it has also disparaged the consumption of potatoes, banning white potatoes from the federal WIC program, while allowing WIC money to be spent on far less nutritious things that are starchy, fatty or sugary (such as apple sauce, which has no nutrition unless vitamin C is artificially added to it).

The potato is superior to most foods in nutrients per dollar (and per acre of farmland), so much so that “in 2008, the United Nations declared it to be the ‘Year of the Potato.’” (Thank you again to the ancients of the Andes for this marvelous little food.)

“This was done to bring attention to the fact that the potato is one of the most efficient crops for developing nations to grow, as a way of delivering a high level of nutrition to growing populations, with fewer needed resources than other traditional crops. In the summer of 2010, China approved new government policies that positioned the potato as the key crop to feed its growing population.” Potatoes provided much of the agricultural surplus that made the Industrial Revolution possible.

Potatoes are more nutritious than other starchy foods like rice and bread, and “are a good source of vitamins.” They have a lot of vitamin C (much more than a banana or an apple), and potassium levels slightly higher than potassium-rich bananas). Potatoes also have all 8 essential amino acids, unlike most other staple foods like corn and beans.

The Obama administration is also using federal funds to subsidize the opening of an International House of Pancakes in Washington, D.C., despite its sugary and fattening entrees, and the development of high-calorie foods that benefit politically connected agribusinesses.

Ethanol Mandates Meet Reality

by Brian McGraw on November 4, 2010

in Energy, Ethanol

The EPA again lowered its projection in meeting the 2011 “mandate” on cellulosic ethanol. (Is it really a mandate when the end result meets 1.5 percent of its goal?) The original mandate was revised from 250 million gallons to 5-17 million gallons this summer. This week brought even lower projections: 3.94 million gallons, about 1.5 percent of the original target. Rather than scrapping a bad idea, the RFA is clamoring for more and more money.

Many of the problems with bringing cellulosic ethanol relate to a lack of demand, the recession, large capital costs for new ethanol plants, regulatory uncertainty, etc., but apparently the DOE has been very slow and ineffective in handing out free taxpayer money guaranteed loans. Note the irony — an incompetent federal bureaucracy is inhibiting the government’s ability to damage the economy.

In other ethanol news, Growth Energy is optimistic about the new Congress’ attitude towards ethanol. Bob Dineen writes:

Ethanol is not now, nor has it ever been a partisan issue,” RFA President and CEO Bob Dinneen said. “There were strong ethanol proponents lost last night, but there were many more ethanol advocates that won last night, too. And, more importantly, for the most part those that may have been defeated were replaced with equally strong advocates for value-added agriculture and ethanol.”

It’s more appropriate to call ethanol a regional issue, where congressmen whose constituents benefit from federal biofuel policy show strong support for the status quo and the rest of Congress doesn’t pay much attention to such a remote issue. If ethanol tax policy is extended, it’s easy to see the public choice explanation of what happens when costs are spread across the entire nation and benefits are concentrated with a small, vocal minority.

It is appropriate for ethanol opponents to be cautiously optimistic. As noted in the link above, there isn’t much time for Congress to pass legislation before the tax credit expires, and there are certainly many more important issues that will occupy the majority of the remaining time.

Global Food Crisis Forecast; Aggravated by Biofuels and Global Warming Legislation

by Hans Bader on October 26, 2010

in Agriculture, Energy, Environment, Ethanol, Global Warming, International, Natural Resources

A global food crisis is “forecast as prices reach record highs.”  “Rising food prices and shortages could cause instability in many countries as the cost of staple foods and vegetables reached their highest levels in two years.”  “Global wheat and maize prices recently jumped nearly 30% in a few weeks while meat prices are at 20-year highs.” “Meanwhile, the price of tomatoes in Egypt, garlic in China and bread in Pakistan are at near-record levels.”

Drought is one factor in the price spikes.  Biofuels and ethanol subsidies and mandates are another major factor.  According to the UN, “large-scale land acquisitions by foreign investors for biofuels is squeezing land suitable for agriculture.”

Ethanol subsidies have resulted in forests being destroyed in the Third World, and caused famines that have killed countless people in the world’s poorest countries.

These subsidies are expanded in the global warming legislation backed by the Obama administration.  Its ethanol subsidies will result in “damage to water supplies, soil health and air quality.”  The Washington Examiner earlier explained how the global warming bill backed by President Obama would cause deforestation by expanding ethanol subsidies, and thus increase greenhouse gas emissions in the long run.   It was larded up with corporate welfare: 85 percent of its carbon allowances were given away to special interests free of charge, thanks to lobbying that turned the bill into an orgy of corporate welfare.

Earlier, Ron Bailey wrote in Reason magazine about the “global food crisis” that has resulted in food riots across the world, in countries like Mexico, Pakistan, Indonesia, Yemen, Haiti, and Egypt.   The crisis, he notes, is caused by “stupid energy policies” in the form of ethanol “mandates” and subsidies, which result in the world’s breadbaskets producing less food and more ethanol.

In 2008, two prominent environmentalists, Lester Pearson and Jonathan Lewis, published a Washington Post editorial, “Ethanol’s Failed Promise,” which explained how ethanol subsidies and mandates are destroying the environment and fueling hunger and violence worldwide.

Turning one-fourth of our corn into fuel is affecting global food prices. U.S. food prices are rising at twice the rate of inflation, hitting the pocketbooks of lower-income Americans and people living on fixed incomes. … Deadly food riots have broken out in dozens of nations in the past few months, most recently in Haiti and Egypt. World Bank President Robert Zoellick warns of a global food emergency.

Moreover, they noted,

food-to-fuel mandates are leading to increased environmental damage. First, producing ethanol requires huge amounts of energy — most of which comes from coal. Second, the production process creates a number of hazardous byproducts, and some production facilities are reportedly dumping these in local water sources.  Third, food-to-fuel mandates are helping drive up the price of agricultural staples, leading to significant changes in land use with major environmental harm. Here in the United States, farmers are pulling land out of the federal conservation program, threatening fragile habitats. … Most troubling, though, is that the higher food prices caused in large part by food-to-fuel mandates create incentives for global deforestation, including in the Amazon basin. As Time Magazine reported this month, huge swaths of forest are being cleared for agricultural development. The result is devastating: We lose an ecological treasure and critical habitat for endangered species, as well as the world’s largest ‘carbon sink.’ And when the forests are cleared and the land plowed for farming, the carbon that had been sequestered in the plants and soil is released. Princeton scholar Tim Searchinger has modeled this impact and reports in Science magazine that the net impact of the food-to-fuel push will be an increase in global carbon emissions — and thus a catalyst for climate change.

In Human Events, Deroy Murdock explained how rising food prices resulting from ethanol forced Haitians to literally eat dirt (dirt cookies made of vegetable oil, salt, and dirt), caused tortilla riots in Mexico, and fueled violent protests in unstable “powder kegs” like Pakistan and Egypt.

In 2008, finance ministers and central bankers called for end to ethanol subsidies and biofuel mandates. South African finance minister Trevor Manuel called such subsidies “criminal.” Earlier, the Indian Finance Minister Chidambaram noted that “in a world where there is hunger and poverty, there is no policy justification for diverting food crops towards bio-fuels. Converting food into fuel is neither good policy for the poor nor for the environment.”

The EPA is now ratcheting up ethanol use, heedless of the fact that ethanol makes gasoline costlier and dirtier, increases ozone pollution, and increases the death toll from smog and air pollution.  Ethanol production also results in deforestation, soil erosion, and water pollution.

Federal Government Wastes Millions on Vacant, Run-Down Buildings, Including a Pink Monkey House

by Hans Bader on September 2, 2010 · 1 comment

in Economy, Legal, Politics as Usual, Sanctimony, Stimulus to Nowhere, Zeitgeist

The Department of Veterans Affairs is spending millions annually on 314 run-down, vacant buildings, including a pink monkey house. “The buildings are home to rats, lead paint, wall-to-wall fungal growth, mold, radon, and spare tires,” notes the Washington Examiner.

“Billions of stimulus dollars have been wasted on programs” highlighted by Citizens Against Government Waste, such as “$554,763 for new windows in a visitor’s center that closed in 2007 in Washington. In several instances, stimulus spending has actually reduced private sector employment; in Normandy Park, Washington, $3.8 million was spent on a ‘streetscaping’ project that drove customers away from local businesses, causing a local restaurant to fire two employees.”

As noted earlier, money from the stimulus package is being wasted on things such as “Saturday night ‘pervert’ revues.”   “Join your fellow pervs for some explicit, twisted fun,” urged one  recipient of stimulus money.

Earlier, Obama fired an inspector general, Gerald Walpin, who uncovered fraud by an Obama supporter in the federal AmeriCorps program, whose budget Obama has massively increased.  AmeriCorps money has been wasted in the past on ideological causes, like paying young people to lobby for rent control.

Judge Blocks Gulf Drilling Ban, Citing Deception by Obama Administration; Obama Continues to Delay Gulf Clean-Up

by Hans Bader on June 22, 2010

in Agriculture, Energy, Environment, Ethanol, Global Warming, International, Legal, Natural Resources, Politics as Usual, Precaution & Risk, Regulation, Sanctimony

A federal judge has just blocked the Obama administration from imposing a blanket ban on drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.  Judge Martin Feldman cited blatantly false claims by the Obama administration in its report imposing the ban, and violations of the Administrative Procedure Act, which protects against arbitrary government actions.  Earlier, Obama had delayed a clean-up of the Gulf of Mexico by Louisiana and foreign countries, by imposing unnecessary red tape.

“Judge Feldman hones in on blatant lies incorporated into the Deepwater report by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. His head should roll:

In the Executive Summary to the Report, the Secretary [Salazar] recommends “a six-month moratorium on permits for new wells being drilled . . .” Much to the government’s discomfort and this Court’s uneasiness, the Summary also states that “the recommendations contained in this report have been peer-reviewed by seven experts”. . .the experts themselves, pointedly observe, this statement was misleading. The experts charge it was a “misrepresentation.” It was factually incorrect.  . . five of the National Academy experts and three of the other experts have publicly stated that they “do not agree with the six month blanket moratorium” on floating drilling.”

The government recently used red tape to force Louisiana to stop using 16 barges that were cleaning up the Gulf of Mexico by sucking thousands of gallons of oil out of Louisiana’s oil-soaked waters.  Earlier, four oil skimmers needed to clean the Gulf were blocked by EPA officials.

Obama also delayed the clean-up of the Gulf of Mexico by blocking foreign crews from operating sophisticated clean-up vessels.  The Jones Act bans foreign vessels and crews from working in U.S. waters, but it gives the President the authority to completely waive that ban if he wishes.  Obama refused to lift the ban, even though American shippers who generally support the ban said they wouldn’t object to lifting it to fight the spill.  As a result of the ban, the U.S. has rejected a lot of foreign aid from counties with expertise in fighting oil spills, and accepted only a small amount of foreign equipment to fight the spill.

Even Democrats are now criticizing the Obama administration for refusing to waive the ban to allow America’s allies to clean up the oil spill:

Rep. Corrine Brown (D-Fla.) said it was unacceptable that her state couldn’t utilize foreign vessels for skimming. She held up pictures of skimmers available in Mexico and Norway that could help.  ‘We are in emergency mode and we need skimmers,’ Brown said. “We need the big ones. I understand they’re available in other countries, including Mexico and Norway. What is the process for the state to utilize these vessels from other countries? … We’re talking about protecting Florida’s coast.’ . . .Deputy Maritime Administrator David Matsuda confirmed there has been one Jones Act waiver request for a foreign deck barge to operate within three miles of the U.S. coast. That request was denied . . . .Of course, the Obama administration could eliminate the bureaucratic delay entirely by simply following the precedent set by the Bush administration, which waived the Jones Act in the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005 to transport oil and gasoline throughout the Gulf region. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has the legal authority to suspend the law.

“The BP clean-up effort in the Gulf of Mexico is hampered by the Jones Act. This is a piece of 1920s protectionist legislation, that requires all vessels working in U.S. waters to be American-built, and American-crewed. So” the U.S. Coast Guard ”can’t accept, and therefore don’t ask for, the assistance of high-tech European vessels specifically designed for the task in hand.”

The law itself permits the president to waive these requirements, and such waivers were “granted, promptly, by the Bush administration,” in the aftermath of hurricanes and other emergencies. But Obama refused to do so after the spill, notes David Warren in the Ottawa Citizen.  Instead, Obama rejected a Dutch offer to help clean up the spill, noted Voice of America News:

“The Obama administration declined the Dutch offer partly because of the Jones Act, which restricts foreign ships from certain activities in U.S. waters.  During the Hurricane Katrina crisis five years ago, the Bush administration waived the Jones Act in order to facilitate some foreign assistance, but such a waiver was not given in this case.”

“After the Obama administration refused help from the Netherlands, Geert Visser, the consul general for the Netherlands in Houston, told Loren Steffy: ‘Let’s forget about politics; let’s get it done.’” But for Obama, politics always comes first: “The explanation of Obama’s reluctance to seek this remedy is his cozy relationship with labor unions. . . ‘The unions see it [not waiving the act] as … protecting jobs. They hate when the Jones Act gets waived.’”

(The Obama administration belatedly accepted some foreign equipment for use in fighting the spill, although it still blocked ships with foreign crews from working in U.S. waters.  As Voice of America notes, although ”the Netherlands offered help in April,” such as providing ”sophisticated” oil “skimmers and dredging devices,” the Obama administration blocked their crews from working in U.S. waters, and as a result, this crucial ”operation was delayed until U.S. crews could be trained” in June.  “The Dutch also offered assistance with building sand berms (barriers) along the coast of Louisiana to protect sensitive marshlands, but that offer was also rejected, even though Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal had been requesting such protective barriers.”)

In April 2009, the Obama administration granted BP, a big supporter of Obama, a waiver of environmental regulations.  But after the oil spill, it blocked Louisiana from protecting its coastline against the oil spill by delaying rather than expediting regulatory approval of essential protective measures.  It has also chosen not to use what has been described as “the most effective method” of fighting the spill, a method successfully used in other oil spills.  Democratic strategist James Carville called Obama’s handling of the oil spill “lackadaisical” and “unbelievable” in its “stupidity.”

Obama is now using BP’s oil spill to push the global-warming legislation that BP had lobbied for.  Obama’s global-warming legislation expands ethanol subsidies, which cause famine, starvation, and food riots in poor countries by shrinking the food supply.  Ethanol makes gasoline costlier and dirtier, increases ozone pollution, and increases the death toll from smog and air pollution.   Ethanol production also results in deforestation, soil erosion, and water pollution. Subsidies for biofuels like ethanol are a big source of corporate welfare: “BP has lobbied for and profited from subsidies for biofuels . . . that cannot break even without government support.”

Obama Uses Oil Spill to Push Failed Energy Policies

by Hans Bader on June 16, 2010

in Agriculture, Economy, Employment, Energy, Environment, Ethanol, Global Warming, Health and Illness, International, Legal, Natural Resources, Politics as Usual, Precaution & Risk, Regulation, Sanctimony, Stimulus to Nowhere, Trade, Zeitgeist

In his speech last night, President Obama used the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico to push his failed energy policies, such as a “green jobs” program that has replaced American jobs with foreign “green” jobs, and a climate-change bill that includes ecologically-devastating ethanol subsidies.  Meanwhile, Louisiana residents rated Obama’s inept response to the oil spill as worse than Bush’s much-criticized response to Hurricane Katrina, in a public opinion poll–perhaps because Obama delayed the clean-up of the oil spill by blocking assistance from many foreign experts.

Obama used the oil spill to push for more so-called “green jobs” programs, deceptively boasting that “over the last year and a half,” the government has subsidized the so-called “clean energy industry.”  This was a reference to the February 2009 stimulus package, which contained so-called “green jobs” funding, 79 percent of which went to foreign firms, replacing American jobs with foreign green jobs.  (The administration never bothered to define what a “green job” is, and some so-called “green jobs” turn out to be harmful to the environment.)  The stimulus package also contained regulations that destroyed jobs in America’s export sector.

In his speech, Obama also used the spill to push the so-called “comprehensive energy and climate bill” passed by the “House of Representatives” late “last year.”  That bill expands ethanol subsidies, which cause famine, starvation, and food riots in poor countries by shrinking the food supply.  Ethanol makes gasoline costlier and dirtier, increases ozone pollution, and increases the death toll from smog and air pollution.   Ethanol production also results in deforestation, soil erosion, and water pollution. Subsidies for biofuels like ethanol are a big source of corporate welfare: “BP has lobbied for and profited from subsidies for biofuels . . . that cannot break even without government support.”

Obama said nothing about waiving the Jones Act, a law that bans foreign ships from working in the U.S. waters unless the President waives the ban.  Past presidents have waived the ban after hurricanes to allow foreign experts to assist the U.S., and speed shipping of relief to hurricane victims.  But Obama refused to do so after the spill, report Voice of America News, the Washington Examiner, and Canadian, Australian, and European newspapers, even though it would make obvious sense to accept help from oil-producing, maritime countries like Norway that have big fleets and expertise in handling oil-drilling and oil-spill issues.   As a result, the Obama administration rejected various offers of assistance from Norwegian, Belgian, Dutch, and Mexican firms.

(The Obama administration has belatedly accepted some foreign equipment for use in fighting the spill, although it continued to block ships with foreign crews, delaying the foreign equipment’s use.  As Voice of America notes, although ”the Netherlands offered help in April,” such as providing ”sophisticated” oil “skimmers and dredging devices,” the Obama administration blocked their crews from working in U.S. waters, and as a result, this crucial ”operation was delayed until U.S. crews could be trained” in June.  “The Dutch also offered assistance with building sand berms (barriers) along the coast of Louisiana to protect sensitive marshlands, but that offer was also rejected, even though Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal had been requesting such protective barriers.”)

In April 2009, the Obama administration granted BP, a supporter of Obama, a waiver of environmental regulations.  But after the oil spill, it blocked Louisiana from protecting its coastline against the oil spill by delaying rather than expediting regulatory approval of essential protective measures.  It has also chosen not to use what has been described as “the most effective method“ of fighting the spill, a method successfully used in other oil spills.  Democratic strategist James Carville called Obama’s handling of the oil spill “lackadaisical“ and “unbelievable“ in its “stupidity.”

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