Corn growers are in Washington, DC taking care of business. It’s the semi-annual Corn Congress.
Corn farmers from across the country will gather in Washington the week of July 12 for a series of team and committee meetings, Capitol Hill visits with lawmakers and the semi-annual Corn Congress, where grower-leaders from 28 states will elect four new members of the National Corn Growers Association Corn Board. You can hear NCGA President Darrin Ihnen talk about it:
One of the activities that took place today was the presentation of the President’s Award.
National Corn Growers Association President Darrin Ihnen today presented the President’s Award to Senator John Thune (R-S.D.) during NCGA’s Corn Congress events in Washington, D.C. The President’s Award is given annually to a leader who has worked to advance issues important to corn growers and agriculture.
Is it too much to ask for some integrityand just plain honesty in the world? Growing up I probably came across as totally naïve to many of those around me because I believed authority figures like government officials and scientists and most any adult in my life. And you could have convinced me my parents carried the second tablet down the mountain for Moses. The reason was simple…I had no reason not to.
Today, I share trust and dole out faith in the smallest of measures because we seem to be surrounded by fibs, manufactured “facts,” bogus science, and politicians and businessmen that would have been whacked back to the stone age with a ruler by Sister Mary Margaret in third grade.
A quick look at the news this week easily surfaced examples of this kind of fast and loose use of incorrect information, handy subterfuge, and dare I say it…lies.
The first is news from the London Telegraph which notes the venerable United Nations has admitted a report linking livestock to global warming exaggerated the impact of eating meat on climate change or global warming.
The 2006 study, Livestock’s Long Shadow, claimed meat production was responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions – more than transportation.
Now Sir Paul doesn’t strike me as the scientist type so perhaps that should have been a clue. If Dr. Ringo had made the claim that would have been different. The point is for three years many people have been assured eating meat would leading to global Armageddon brought on by nothing less than cow flatulence. Oh, the indignity.
All the time the truth is that “meat and milk production generates less greenhouse gas than most environmentalists claim and that the emissions figures were calculated differently to the transport figures, resulting in an “apples-and-oranges analogy that truly confused the issue.”
If your jaded self is still with me it’s on to example 2. While we have been blissfully driving about in our trucks and SUVs it seems the oil magnates of the world have been manipulating oil supply numbers for financial gain and to curry political favor. (Insert sound effects of heavy and shocked intake of breath here). (more…)
Kicking off the NCGA Land Use and Carbon Impacts of Corn-Based Ethanol Conference and welcoming participants was Conference Chairman, Jamey Cline, NCGA Director Biofuels and Business Development. I spoke with him after the opening session.
Jamey says that regulations from the California Air Resources Board (CARB) and from EPA on the Renewable Fuel Standards (RFS) have brought up a number of questions and this conference was put together to ask them and receive answers in a public forum with various stakeholders. A lot of these current or proposed regulations are based on assumptions and economic theory and so questions need to be asked to make sure the latest data is being used and reasonable predictions are made for the future. He says that these issues are extremely important to agribusiness and corn growers in particular because if the CARB regs hold up, by 2012 they will effectively shut off that market to ethanol. Additionally, one presenter said that due to the proposed climate change bill and RFS, approximately 27.1 million acres would be taken out of production across the Unites States. That would have a huge impact on our economy, especially in rural areas.
He also speaks about the various models being used or referenced on the topics like land use change and life cycle analysis.
It’s always good to see what the various state corn grower organizations are doing. Right now the Ohio Corn Growers Association have a nice building getting lots of activity on the grounds of the Farm Science Review. One of their board members has been involved with it for many years. He’s Ron Rockhold, pictured on the right. Ron says he farms in southern Fayette County and has been on the board for going on 20 years. He spends one day working in the exhibit and one day with his brother “taking in the sights.”
Ron says this show is a great thing for agriculture. He says the message they’re trying to get across to growers is what’s happening with legislation, especially the farm bill and the rfs standard. In fact, he says, “. . . talking about the RFS which is even more important than the farm bill because it increases the demand for corn and has raised the price of corn to where farmers are getting their money from the market now instead of from the government.” That’s something he says he’s always wanted to see.
Seven commodity and ethanol organizations have written a letter to President Bush in support of the secondary tariff on imported ethanol. The groups called attention to the importance of the tariff for the nation’s growing ethanol industry, as well as to the nation’s energy, economic, and environmental security.
“The 54 cent per gallon secondary tariff was enacted by Congress in 1980 to offset any incentive for imported ethanol to benefit from the 54 cent per gallon tax credit for ethanol blended into motor fuel,” the letter said. “This tax credit is taken by refiners who blend ethanol into motor fuel, not ethanol producers. The purpose of the secondary tariff is to protect American taxpayers from subsidizing imports, not to protect domestic ethanol producers.”
The letter points to factors such as oil prices, rising demand, drought, and declining value of the dollar as having more effect on the price of food than biofuels. They urged the President to avoid yielding to the misdirected efforts to blame ethanol for rising prices and to prevent American taxpayers from subsidizing foreign products.
“If farmers ran their business like we’re running this Farm Bill negotiation, we wouldn’t have any food to eat.”
That statement from Congressman Randy Neugebauer (R-TX) pretty well sums up the frustration felt by farmers and some lawmakers at this point with planting season here and no farm bill.
Congress got another one week extension of the current farm bill to try and get a new bill passed this week, but it is looking more and more like a long term extension of current legislation will be the end result.
Optimism was starting to sound a bit hollow on Friday when Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Tom Harkin (D-IA) called progress on the legislation “incremental at best” with funding of the bill continuing to be a stumbling block.
Senator Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), the ranking member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, tried to sound optimistic. “Hopefully by the time Tuesday morning rolls around here, some kind of progress has been made.”
President Bush expressed great reluctance to extend the current bill another week, but gave Congress the benefit of the doubt and signed the extension Friday. USDA Deputy Secretary Chuck Conner says he did it to avoid reverting to the archaic 1949 farm law. “We owe it to the producers to not do anything that would be that disruptive,” said Conner.
However, unless significant progress is made within the next day or so, an extension of the current farm bill for another year at least seems the best course of action to give farmers some sense of security as they head to the fields.
Missouri is prepared for a law requiring a ten percent ethanol blend to kick in next week.
According to an article in the Kansas City Star, most of the gasoline sold in Missouri already being blended with ethanol.
The law “sent a tremendous signal,” said Gary Marshall, chief executive officer of the Missouri Corn Growers Association, and E-10 now meets about 90 percent of the demand for gasoline in the state.
F. J. Cronenwett, director of wholesale fuels for Robson Oil, which supplies several area gas stations, said that most fuel retailers in Missouri and Kansas were using E-10 because of the lower price and were even using an ethanol blend when they buy premium fuel, which won’t be required under the Missouri law.
“That’s really the way the market works right now,” he said.
Missouri currently has five ethanol plants on-line with a total annual production of 225 million gallons and by the end of 2008 the state should have 275 million gallons of production capacity, which would be enough to meet the state’s demand for E-10.
The Senate fell one vote short in a procedural vote to move the Energy Bill passed by the House that includes tax increases for oil companies. The White House had threatened to veto the bill over that issue.
Majority Leader Harry Reid now says they will eliminate the tax title to get a revised energy package approved later today. “We must begin to break our country’s addiction to oil,” Reid said.
The bill will still include an increased Renewable Fuels Standard and higher CAFE standards.
Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky predicted the revised bill would be approved with wide bipartisan support.
The legislation, if passed by the Senate, would have to be voted on by the House.
The energy bill was on a roll after passing the House Thursday, but a failed vote to end debate in the Senate puts the bill back in limbo.
In urging Senators to block a vote on the bill, Sen. Pete Domenici of New Mexico, the ranking Republican on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, argued: “This is not a good bill, but it can be turned into a great bill.”
The White House threatened a veto over the bill which includes increased taxes for oil companies and requires utilities to generate more electricity from sources such as solar and wind energy.
Meanwhile, the Senate got back to work on the farm bill this morning after reaching a deal that will allow 20 amendments from each party.
Yesterday the House of Representatives passed H.R. 6, The Energy Independence and Security Act. NCGA like many other farm groups applauded the move. The House bill includes a 36 billion-gallon Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS) with 15 billion gallons for corn based ethanol.
“NCGA is excited about the 15 billion-gallon expanded RFS for grains-based ethanol that the leadership included in the House package,” said NCGA President Ron Litterer. “We hope to see the RFS quickly move through the Senate and to the president’s desk. The passage of the RFS is our number one priority.”
The following are key provisions of the House energy bill:
* Expands RFS for corn ethanol to 15 billion gallons by 2015
* Requires 9 billion gallons of renewable fuels in 2008 and progressively increases to a 36-billion-gallon requirement by 2022
* Moves the Volumetric Ethanol Excise Tax Credit from 51 cents per gallon to 46 cents per gallon
* Extends the biodiesel tax credit to 2010
Now it’s on to the Senate where things may not be quite as easy and the White House which is apparently not currently favorable to the House bill. This is what makes life interesting isn’t it?
Corn growers are in Washington, DC taking care of business. It’s the semi-annual Corn Congress.
Kicking off the NCGA Land Use and Carbon Impacts of Corn-Based Ethanol Conference and welcoming participants was Conference Chairman, Jamey Cline, NCGA Director Biofuels and Business Development. I spoke with him after the opening session.
It’s always good to see what the various state corn grower organizations are doing. Right now the 
Congress got another one week extension of the current farm bill to try and get a new bill passed this week, but it is looking more and more like a long term extension of current legislation will be the end result.
Missouri is prepared for a law requiring a ten percent ethanol blend to kick in next week.
In urging Senators to block a vote on the bill, Sen. Pete Domenici of New Mexico, the ranking Republican on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, argued: “This is not a good bill, but it can be turned into a great bill.”