Appetite for destruction

The grain required to fill a 25-gallon SUV gas tank with ethanol, for instance, could feed one person for a year

The growing myth that corn is a cure-all for our energy woes is leading us toward a potentially dangerous global fight for food. While crop-based ethanol -the latest craze in alternative energy - promises a guilt-free way to keep our gas tanks full, the reality is that overuse of our agricultural resources could have consequences even more drastic than, say, being deprived of our SUVs. It could leave much of the world hungry.

We are facing an epic competition between the 800 million motorists who want to protect their mobility and the two billion poorest people in the world who simply want to survive. In effect, supermarkets and service stations are now competing for the same resources.

This year cars, not people, will claim most of the increase in world grain consumption. The problem is simple: It takes a whole lot of agricultural produce to create a modest amount of automotive fuel.

The grain required to fill a 25-gallon SUV gas tank with ethanol, for instance, could feed one person for a year. If today's entire U.S. grain harvest were converted into fuel for cars, it would still satisfy less than one-sixth of U.S. demand.

Worldwide increase in grain consumption

The U.S. Department of Agriculture reports that world grain consumption will increase by 20 million tons this year, roughly 1%. Of that, 14 million tons will be used to fuel cars in the U.S., leaving only six million tons to cover the world's growing food needs.

Already commodity prices are rising. Sugar prices have doubled over the past 18 months (driven in part by Brazil's use of sugar cane for fuel), and world corn and wheat prices are up one-fourth so far this year.

For the world's poorest people, many of whom spend half or more of their income on food, rising grain prices can quickly become life threatening.

Once stimulated solely by government subsidies, biofuel production is now being driven largely by the runaway price of oil. Many food commodities, including corn, wheat, rice, soybeans, and sugar cane, can be converted into fuel; thus the food and energy economies are beginning to merge.

The market is setting the price for farm commodities at their oil-equivalent value. As the price of oil climbs, so will the price of food.

In some U.S. Cornbelt states, ethanol distilleries are taking over the corn supply. In Iowa, 25 ethanol plants are operating, four are under construction, and another 26 are planned.

Iowa State University economist Bob Wisner observes that if all those plants are built, distilleries would use the entire Iowa corn harvest. In South Dakota, ethanol distilleries are already claiming over half that state's crop.

The key to lessening demand for grain is to commercialize ethanol production from cellulosic materials such as switchgrass or poplar trees, a prospect that is at least five years away.

Malaysia, the leading exporter of palm oil, is emerging as the biofuel leader in Asia. But after approving 32 biodiesel refineries within the past 15 months, it recently suspended further licensing while it assesses the adequacy of its palm oil supplies. Fast-rising global demand for palm oil for both food and biodiesel purposes, coupled with rising domestic needs, has the government concerned that there will not be enough to go around.

Less costly alternatives

There are truly guilt-free alternatives to using food-based fuels. The equivalent of the 3% of U.S. automotive fuel supplies coming from ethanol could be achieved several times over - and at a fraction of the cost - by raising auto fuel-efficiency standards by 20%. (Unfortunately Detroit has resisted this, preferring to produce flex-fuel vehicles that will burn either gasoline or ethanol.)

Or what if we shifted to gas-electric hybrid plug-in cars over the next decade, powering short-distance driving, such as the daily commute or grocery shopping, with electricity?

By investing not in hundreds of wind farms, as we now are, but rather in thousands of them to feed cheap electricity into the grid, the U.S. could have cars running primarily on wind energy, and at the gasoline equivalent of less than $1 a gallon.

Clearly, solutions exist. The world desperately needs a strategy to deal with the emerging food-fuel battle. As the world's leading grain producer and exporter, as well as its largest producer of ethanol, the U.S. is in the driver's seat.

Lester R. Brown is president of the Earth Policy Institute and author of "Plan B 2.0: Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble."

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California attorney general urges EPA to allow stricter emission standards

California Attorney General Jerry Brown appealed Tuesday to the Environmental Protection Agency for a waiver so that it and 11 other states can impose rules on car and truck emissions more stringent than those permitted by the Clean Air Act in an effort to combat global warming.

Later, Brown took his message to Capitol Hill, telling the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee that nothing is more essential now than for the United States to act boldly to curb carbon dioxide emissions that most scientists believe are causing the Earth to warm at a dangerous rate.

"This is bigger than Iraq," Brown told the Senate panel, headed by Sen. Barbara Boxer, also a California Democrat. "It is bigger than immigration. It's not tomorrow but it's coming around. The stakes have never been higher."

But there was no indication that Brown's pitch would move the EPA to grant the needed waiver that has been pending since 2005. Bush administration critics, including Brown, charged that the EPA is stalling any action in concert with the U.S. auto and petroleum industries.

Brown vowed to sue the agency if it doesn't issue the waiver by October.

California needs the waiver if it is to enforce a 2002 state law requiring automakers to cut emissions from cars and trucks by 30 percent by 2016. The California standard has since been adopted by 11 other states, and a half-dozen more are looking at it. A waiver for California would open the door to the tougher standard applying to a third of the cars and light trucks sold in the country.

The issue has taken on huge significance for the states because only California can seek exceptions under the Clean Air Act to national emission standards, because of its unique air quality problems. Many of California's large population centers have trouble combating air pollution that gets trapped in the valleys of this mountainous state.

Other states can adopt California standards once a waiver is issued. Many of those states, including New York, Massachusetts, Maryland, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Maine, sent witnesses to the EPA hearing to back California's claim.

Despite the overwhelming show of force by the states, the auto industry sent just one witness - Steve Douglas of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers. Douglas said California had not proven the need for the waiver, claiming that if it were granted, the auto industry would face a "patchwork" of unnecessary regulations.

"The auto industry seems to feel the White House is in their pocket," said Frank O'Donnell, president of Clean Air Watch, an environmental watchdog group. "My guess is that this will drag on, and it will be up to the next administration to see this through."

At the Senate hearing, Case Western Reserve University law school professor Jonathan H. Adler said California might not even qualify for a waiver in the case of global warming.

Adler said the act authorized waivers for California because of its "unique circumstances." But "global climate change by definition is global," he said.

Brown's appearance sparked some fireworks when Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma, the panel's senior Republican and the Senate's leading global warming skeptic, charged that the former state governor and one-time presidential aspirant was "grandstanding" on behalf of the state.

Inhofe called it the "height of hypocrisy" for the state to condemn the Bush administration for not acting on the waiver when it was in violation of the Clean Air Act for exceeding soot and ozone levels.

But Brown said soot and ozone problems would only worsen unless global warming is brought under control. He called the state's case "overwhelming," and he blamed the slow pace of the EPA on "raw politics."

"We know Bush is colluding with the automobile companies and the oil companies," Brown said. "He's an oil man."

EPA officials sat through the administrative hearing but gave no hint of how - or when - the agency might rule.

Boxer said she was calling Johnson to a hearing before her committee on June 21 and pledged that "I will personally leave this podium and give him a big hug" if the EPA head announces approval of the waiver then.

by David Whitney
McClatchy Newspapers

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Jerry Brown Moves for Summary Judgment in Greenhouse Gas Case

California Attorney General and former Governor Jerry Brown has moved for summary judgment against the automakers who filed suit to block California’s law requiring the sharp curtailing of tailpipe emissions of greenhouse gases. This morning he requested a status conference with Judge Anthony Ishii, the Fresno-based federal judge who is hearing the case.

Ishii had placed the case on hold while underlying issues were addressed in yesterday’s U.S. Supreme Court case holding that greenhouse gases are covered as pollutants by the Clean Air Act.

Brown said that the court, by ruling that the Clean Air Act applies to emissions that cause climate change, strengthened California's defense of its groundbreaking law requiring new vehicles sold in the state to meet gradually tighter standards for greenhouse gases, starting with the 2009 models.

The ruling "makes it very clear that California has a right to regulate greenhouse gases,'' since the federal government has historically allowed the state to exceed federal standards in regulating air pollutants.

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