More green on green violence

Yet one more reason to be suspicious of/absolutely loathe ethanol.


Is the EPA ignoring their own laws in order to push ethanol production into heretofore protected grasslands?

The NWF (National Wildlife Federation) alleges that crafting the Renewable Fuels Standard, which requires a certain amount of transportation fuel sold in the United States to contain renewable fuel, Congress limited biofuel feedstock production and harvesting to agricultural lands. Natural ecosystems such as grasslands, are not supposed to be converted for agricultural uses, they claim. However, the report notes, the EPA is flaunting this important provision by adopting an “aggregate compliance approach”, which allows protected ecosystems to be destroyed for biofuels production.

“Plowing up our nation’s last remnants of native grasslands to grow more corn for ethanol is like burning the Mona Lisa for firewood,” says Julie Sibbing, Director of Agriculture programs for the National Wildlife Federation.

(italics, ours)

Nice analogy.


It's telling that our heavily-subsidized and inefficient head-long plunge into renewable energy also requires breaking the law.


And just how bad is ethanol? Even the high priest of Big Green, Al Gore, thinks its a crappy idea.

"One of the reasons I made that mistake is that I paid particular attention to the farmers in my home state of Tennessee, and I had a certain fondness for the farmers in the state of Iowa because I was about to run for president."

Wishing to drive up the price of food worldwide in return for an alternative energy that you know is bad policy is just the sort of craven behavior a man needs to display in order to be President, we suppose.


For more reasons on why ethanol is quite possibly the worst idea ever, check out B-Daddy's itemization, here.

Lessons Learned?

In the President's address to the troops in Baghdad, yesterday, this is what he had to say with respect to support of the same (video link, here):

“In the federal budget that I have introduced will increase support for military families to make sure that the commitment we make to our veterans is met and so that people don’t have to fight for what they have earned.”

Hmmm…..

Recall this is the same man who floated the worst idea ever by wanting injured troops to pay for combat-related injuries out of pocket. He later backed off after intense criticism from veterans groups (not that this whole sad-sack affair was widely broadcast) but the damage had been done in our minds. Who even conjures up sick stuff like that?

We hope the CinC learned his lesson. We’re hopeful but we’ve got a bad feeling we haven’t seen the last of the worst idea ever.