Agriculture v. Energy Posted by Adam Blickstein

An open question on corn-based ethanol and biofuels: who is Obama more likely to agree with, the former governor of Iowa or a Nobel laureate in science:

Although Obama and Vilsack have supported corn-based ethanol production in the past, a challenge may come from elsewhere within the new Obama administration, Pollan said. "The new secretary of energy, Steven Chu, is a pretty fierce critic of corn-based ethanol," he said, "and I would imagine will be arguing for moving away from corn as a feedstock for ethanol, toward other crops.

Pollan says he hopes those crops won't compete with food crops. Viable alternatives to corn-based ethanol could include trees and crop waste — even grasses, he said.

"And whether Vilsack and Obama are ready to go there remains to be seen," Pollan said. "But certainly, Steven Chu will be pushing them that way."

Comments

[Jaime]

Vilsack is an agribusiness shill. So much for the 'Change' we needed in agriculture... Read about it: http://commera.blogspot.com/2008/12/chalk-one-up-for-agribusiness.html

[Zathras]

Steven Chu will be doing no such thing. Hardly anything about the federal government's support of the corn ethanol industry falls within the purview of the Energy Department. Moreover corn ethanol has substantial support in Congress. Chu will have the authority to comment, but nothing more than that -- apart from the fact that he will have his hands full with his own department's issues and the challenges Obama's broader energy policy is likely to place before him.

As for Vilsack, sources in Iowa tell me they were surprised that he was offered, and accepted, the USDA job. Vilsack was respected in Iowa as a talented politician and a governor who sought to do the right thing, but he never had a reputation as an "ag guy" apart from the biofuels issue -- and everyone in Iowa politics has been gung-ho on biofuels for the last ten years at least. Besides, despite its name USDA spends much more money on nutrition programs than it does on all the farm programs put together, and that's not Vilsack's background, either. Vilsack was sympathetic to conservation programs as governor, however, so mainstream environmental groups are fairly happy about this appointment.

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