Reply #4: But Jeb asserts that ethanol prod'n won't threaten food supplies and claims tariffs to be slashed...

[seafan]

Jeb Bush has been hard at work behind the scenes on the ethanol push. Since April, 2006, Jeb has been pushing George to get more interested in ethanol. In January of 2007, it finally worked, and we all saw George flitting about the US and Latin America with a *mission* to sell.



Latin America Divided Over Ethanol, April 22, 2007

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez calls the boom in ethanol the equivalent of starving the poor "to feed automobiles."
Ethanol, which is derived from crops such as corn or sugar, is seen by some as a green alternative, a rising star on the path toward reducing independence on foreign petroleum. But it's not just Mr. Chávez who is questioning whether the benefits outweigh the unintended consequences.

Now poultry industry executives, who have seen the price of feedstock go up; Mexican consumers, facing a 60 percent jump in the cost of tortillas; and even environmentalists, who look at the amount of fertilizer that will be needed to grow extra crops, are wondering aloud whether ethanol will help or hurt Latin American economies.

.....

The South American energy summit that concluded in Venezuela this week provided the latest platform for critics. Even though the debate has been cast as another issue in the long line of ideological battles aligning Chávez and Cuban leader Fidel Castro against the U.S., some analysts say that their point is larger than political: If the price for staple food items rises across the globe because of demand, Latin America will be one of the hardest-hit regions.

"I think people worry that rich Americans are trying to fuel cars at the expense of hungry people in poorer countries," says Janet Larsen, director of research at the Earth Policy Institute in Washington. "This increased push for ethanol production could be an incredible foreign policy blunder."
What we are seeing now, she says, is the beginning of a very long debate. Chávez's comments came shortly after harsh op-eds penned by Mr. Castro who, in his first public statements since falling ill last July, resurfaced to call the U.S. proposal "genocidal."

His words follow mass protests in Mexico, after the price of corn tortillas shot up in January. The South American Energy Summit at Margarita Island was the first meeting between Brazil's President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva since Chávez lambasted the plan after Mr. Bush visited Brazil last month, when Bush and Lula signed a proposal to promote the industry in the region.
For this meeting, Chávez nuanced his position — saying he is not against ethanol production but against the U.S. plan to use corn to produce it.

.....

Mexico has reacted most strongly to higher food prices, but it could be the beginning of protests across the world. The food vs. fuel debate poses questions about the management and beneficiaries of resources, says Celso Garrido, an economist at the Autonomous Metropolitan University in Mexico.
"Mexico gets great quantity of corn from the U.S. This will have an impact on the basket of food for the population in Mexico," he says. "It seems that Mexico requires a policy to look at the impact of transferring food to energy."

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But then, Jeb quietly went to Brazil last week, on April 16, 2007, touting his belief that the ethanol market will double in five years....


Also, he proclaimed while he was there, that

...he believes the trade barriers in the international ethanol market would be phased out. He said the U.S. is likely to slash tariff on ethanol from Brazil, the top exporter of the renewable fuel.

The U.S. government currently charges 0.54 U.S. dollars for each gallon of ethanol imported from Brazil.

How much do we want to bet that BIG OIL will have something to say about that?


And, whaddyaknow, he also asserted: "Ethanol no threat to food supplies!"

U.S. President George W. Bush's brother Jeb Bush said on Tuesday that an increase in Brazilian ethanol output will not necessarily threaten international food supplies.

We are convinced that Brazil is capable of increasing its production of sugar and ethanol from sugarcane without threatening food supplies, Bush said.

He also told Brazilian legislators that he expects U.S. government to reduce or eliminate its 2.5 percent tariff on ethanol in several years and ethanol to become a key product on the international biofuel market. The United States hopes to create a "robust world market" for alternative fuels, Bush said..

The former governor of Florida state made the remarks during a visit to the Brazilian Congress in response to the boycott by Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro of a deal aimed at raising the production of ethanol worldwide as an alternative to fossil fuels.

Castro and Chavez, leaders of Cuba and Venezuela, said they were concerned that people might starve if more agricultural land is used to produce crops for energy instead of food.

Bush argued that increased production of ethanol might cause problems in countries like USA that use corn as the raw material but Brazil is immunized as it makes ethanol from sugarcane. He also said that the U.S. government intends to invest 1.6 billion U.S. dollars to address the problems.

.....

Who else is wondering which *problem solvers* will get the payoff from our $1.6 billion in tax dollars?



We will be dealing with food and water wars faster than we know if we do not remove the imperialists from our government.