Initially posted in somewhat different form at Blue Mass. Group. I hope that the wider DKos community members might see fit to carry this action to their own congressional delegations.
So it seems that in our eagerness to get on the biofuels bandwagon and enrich vast farm-state special interests with the vast taxpayer-funded boondoggle of corn ethanol, we've legislated our way into a starvation crisis for many, many folks in the third world. 37 countries are in a food emergency, which besides being an utterly needless humanitarian catastrophe, plainly threatens political security as well. Would you riot if you were starving? I would.
Unfortunately, our Democratic Congress doesn't seem to be feeling the urgency to act. From the environment radio show Living on Earth:
[reporter Jeff] YOUNG: ... Hunger experts at a recent United Nations gathering also called on the European Union to reconsider biofuels and Britain's Prime Minister pledged to look into it. But on Capitol Hill few lawmakers seemed interested in the issue.
New Mexico Democrat Jeff Bingaman chairs the Senate's Energy Committee.
BINGAMAN: Well I think most of the food crisis around the world is not in any way related to ethanol.
...
YOUNG: The ethanol mandate pushes industry to find ways to use sources other than corn. Those so-called cellulosic ethanols are in their infancy now, but the law envisions they will provide more than half the ethanol by 2020. House Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi says that should keep biofuel from competing with food.
PELOSI: We've always talked about ethanol coming from cellulosics and other sources other than those sources that would be used for food or for feed. So no, I don't think we would rethink ethanol but I think that the sources of that ethanol are something that have always been considered.
Some urgency, huh? Oh no, it's not our doing! This is utterly unacceptable.
So here's the question to Senators Kerry and Kennedy, and our whole Congressional delegation:
- What are you doing right now to address the immediate starvation crisis around the world?
- What is your long-term plan to alleviate future price spikes in food, while at the same time providing for energy independence?
We've simply got to be able to do both at the same time. It's the foolish and unnecessary reliance on inefficient and polluting corn-ethanol that's a good part of the problem.
Ask your reps, and report on the responses you get.