Last Friday the
U.S. Department of Agriculture announced that the minimum
milk price that processors pay to farmers for the month of
July is up 17 percent from last month and 84 percent from
last year. Why is this happening? Let me take you back to
the State of Union address last January:
"Tonight, I ask Congress to join me in pursuing a great
goal. Let us build on the work we've done and reduce
gasoline usage in the United States by 20 percent in the
next 10 years...To reach this goal, we must increase the
supply of alternative fuels, by setting a mandatory fuels
standard to require 35 billion gallons of renewable and
alternative fuels in 2017 -- and that is nearly five times
the current target."
The Real Story is that milk prices are rising because cows
eat corn feed, and corn feed has doubled in price ever since
ethanol was anointed as the "solution" to our oil
addiction. But here's a fact that you won't hear in any
State of the Union address: To reach President Bush's goal
of replacing twenty percent of our gasoline with ethanol --
most of which would have to be corn-based -- approximately
270,000 square miles of the country would have to be
dedicated to growing corn. Here's how much land that
actually is. New England, good luck and godspeed -- and
Ohio, I hate to do this to you, but we need the land. And
that's just the farmland...we probably need all of West
Virginia just to park the stupid tractors -- It's really
incredible when you look at it that way just how impractical
it is.
Quite honestly, if planting corn COULD actually get us off
Middle East oil then I wouldn't care if milk cost $400 a
gallon...I mean, cows aren't likely to strap on suicide
belts and try to kill us -- but unfortunately, it can't
solve this problem; corn ethanol isn't a practical solution;
it's a political one.
I don't mean to single-out ethanol, I'd just like to make
sure that we actually solve the problem the RIGHT way for
once. Global warming is the same way. The government sees a
problem and then they come up with solutions based on
special interest money that end up just causing more
problems down the road when we realize our mistake. Haven't
we noticed by now that "government mandated ANYTHING"
doesn't work?
Where is the presidential candidate who wants to get us off
foreign oil once and for all? Where is the candidate who's
willing to launch and fund a JFK moon-shot type program to
find real solutions, not just politically expedient ones? We
need a new source of liquid fuel in this country -- no one
disputes that -- but ethanol isn't it.
|
|
Research Articles
Show Transcript
Send us Your Real Stories!
If
you've seen a news story lately and thought to yourself that
the media has it all wrong, we want to hear from you! Send
us the story you saw, along with what you think the Real
Story should be, by filling out the form below.
|
