Quotes - What Politicians, Researchers and the Industry Leaders have to say.

When you read these quotes you will find that there is some disagreement as to the "corn for fuel" issue.  What is in agreement is that we need to losen the grip that OPEC and the other oil producers has on us.  Families are suffering, not because we use corn for fuel, but because every spare dollar goes to some billionaire who keeps raising the price of oil.  Our position is that we need to keep the corn based fuel as it is now.  Keep the jobs, keep the industry, keep the benefits of corn as an independant source and keep the entire corn growing industry growing, both as a food and as a fuel.  But...

... as a fuel for transportation, corn based Ethanol is a good thing but it can't won't get us off oil.  Imported sugar cane based Ethanol can and will completely decouple us from oil dependance!

Toyota doesn't believe that corn-based ethanol is an environmentally friendly or sustainable solution. 
Bill Reinert, national mngr of advanced techy for Toyota U.S., in The Wall Street Journal  Toyota is not alone in its concern.  Ethanol demand is driving higher prices for corn, which concerns commentators like Lester Brown of the Earth Policy Institute.
 
We're putting the supermarket in competition with the corner filling station for the output of the farm the result is that more people will go hungry.
Lester Brown, President of the Earth Policy Institute, in The New York Times
 
Most experts disagree with Lester Brown.  The US currently has more corn acreage than corn demand. The United States is paying farmers not to grow crops on 35 million acres, to prop up the value of corn. Much of that land could come back into production.
Keith J. Collins, chief economist of the Department of Agriculture, in The New York Times

President Clinton and I will strongly and actively oppose any effort to eliminate the ethanol program. We challenge Congress to do what is right for our farmers, our rural communities, our environment, and our national security.
Vice President Al Gore, April 20, 1998

Its in our vital interest to diversify Americas energy supply the way forward is through technology. We must continue investing in new methods of producing ethanol using everything from wood chips to grasses, to agricultural wastesTo 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 by 2017 and that is nearly five times the current target.
President George W. Bush, State of the Union Address, January 23, 2007

The Governors Ethanol Coalition, which represents 30 Governors [36 today], believes that increasing dependence on foreign oil is a major risk to the nations energy, economic, and environmental security. The safest and cheapest way to mitigate these risks is to set and achieve a goal of providing at least  5% of the nations transportation fuel from ethanol by 2010, and to produce at least 8 billion gallons of ethanol a year by 2012. As soon as practical thereafter, the nation should produce at least 10% of its transportation fuel from ethanol and biodiesel.
Governors Ethanol Coalition, April 12, 2005 in a letter to President George W. Bush

Fuel ethanol reduces crude oil imports and is environmentally friendly; it also helps meet other national public policy goals.Congressional Research Service, 1993 It is indeed a testament to the spirit of compromise in the U.S. Senate that all these groups representing often divergent constituencies and interests can come together to create a product that benefitsall ... any viable energy strategy must serve a variety of national goals this agreement establishes a renewable fuels program to nearly triple the use of renewable fuels like ethanol and biodiesel over the next ten years.
U.S. Senate Majority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-SD), original author and architect of the renewable Fuel Standard, introducing the RFS, Congressional Record, March 13, 2002

The heart of Americas geostrategic problem is reliance on imported oil in a market that is dominated by volatile and hostile governments. We can start to break petroleums grip right now. The energy plan presented here (expand the RFS) is a package of proposals that would dramatically improve Americans security posture. It would also provide more jobs for Americans instead of sending billions of dollars to hostile countries, support our farms instead of  foreign terrorists, and promote green fuels over fossil fuels.
Senator Richard Lugar, March 2007

To safeguard our future economic health as well as our national security, we must move aggressively to diversify our energy sources. Every time we visit the gas pump these days, we are reminded that there is no time to waste.
Energy Secretary Samuel W. Bodman, July 7, 2006

All kinds of technology can reduce our reliance on oil, but if we want to do something thats fast and effective, ethanol is the way to go.
IL Senator Barrack Obama, February 2006

Our paramount national security interest in the Middle East is maintaining the unhindered flow of oil from the Persian Gulf to world markets at stable  prices.
U.S. Department of Defense, May 1995

In response to the nations first energy crisis: It is a crisis of confidence. It is a crisis that strikes at the very heart, soul, and spirit of our national will.It is the moral equivalent to war.
President Jimmy Carter, July 1979

And I dont know if you saw what Saddam Hussein said the other day. He said the biggest mistake he made is when he first moved into Kuwait, that he didn't move into Saudi Arabia ... So what weve got to do is to become less dependent on foreign oil for security reasons, and that means alternate sources.
President George H. Bush, June 18, 1992

It has been the policy of every American president since Harry Truman, that as long as our energy resources are dependent on that part of the world (i.e., Middle East), we are going to be there in force.
Senator John McCain (R-AZ)

It is increasingly clear that riches from oil trickle down to those who would do harm to America and its friends. If this situation remains unchanged, theUnited States will find itself sending soldiers into battle repeatedly, adding the lives of American men and women in uniform to the already high cost of oil.
Timothy Wirth, C. Boyden Gray, John Podesta, The Future of Energy Policy, Foreign Affairs, July/August 2003

They say we have foreign oil. Well, how are we going to get it in case of war? It is in Venezuela... It is out in the East, in Persia, and it is in Russia. Do you think that is much defense for your children?
Francis Garvan, President, Chemical Foundation, 1936

We have a serious problem in the U.S. We are addicted to oil, which is often imported from unstable parts of the world.
President George W. Bush, 2006 State of the Union Address

Oil and motor vehicle use are responsible for enormous hidden economic and health costs due to environmental damage. Economists term these costs externalities because they are not included in the private costs of transportation.
Office of Technology Assessment, 1994

Over the last decade, the death rate for lung disease has risen faster than that of any of the top leading causes of death. Tens of millions of Americans

live in areas not meeting at least one federal air quality standard. The health costs of air pollution are estimated to be $50 billion each year.
American Lung Association

Human mortality and morbidity due to air pollution accounts for over three-quarters of the total environmental cost and could be as high as $182 billion annually.
Union of Concerned Scientists34

Aromatic hydrocarbons in gasoline include benzene, toluene, and xylene. Benzene is a known carcinogen, one of the worst air toxics. 85% of all benzene in the air we breathe comes from motor vehicle exhaust. Xylene from automobile exhaust in the morning rush hour will form ozone [smog] in sunlight to choke our lungs by the afternoon trip home. Toluene, another aromatic, usually forms benzene during the combustion process and thus becomes carcinogenic along with benzene in the gasoline.
Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA)35

America can be the innovation engine that changes the course of history by creating crucial new clean-energy technologies, 21st century jobs, and a democratizing force that provides solutions to our greatest needs.
Richard E. Smalley, the late scientist, visionary, and nanotechnology leader determined that the number one and most pressing challenge facing humanity was access to clean energy.Today, imported petroleum products account for nearly 40% of the U.S. trade deficit. Some projections suggest that number will approach 70% in the next 10 to 20 years. Based on the accelerating increases of the last few years, that day may not be far off.
Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, September 2006

We simply must diversify our sources of energy, and we must do so in a way that lessens our dependence on foreign sources for this energy. The fact that almost 60% of our energy sources are coming from overseas is simply too much, it is unacceptable today. Americas energy policy should be consistent with our foreign policy in that it has the principles of independence and security at its foundation.
U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN), July 22, 2003

Because fuel ethanol reduces crude oil imports and is environmentally friendly, it also helps meet other national public policy goals. Since 1988, Congress has enacted three major pieces of legislation designed, among other objectives, to foster the development, introduction, and diffusion of alternative nonpetroleum fuels into the transportation sector and thereby reducing oil imports while, at the same time, creating domestic jobs, improving urban air quality and staying even with, if not reducing, emissions of greenhouse gases.
Congressional Research Service

No single policy tool can substantially increase Americas energy security. The basic vulnerability involves oil, but reducing this vulnerability requires a broad array of actions: maintaining adequate strategic reserves; increasing the efficiency of our entire fleet of cars, trucks, trains, planes, and buses;  increasing U.S. petroleum production in an environmentally sensitive manner, ...and using alternative fuels.
U.S. Department of Energy

Failure to meet increasing energy demand with increased energy supplies, and vulnerability to disruptions from natural or malevolent causes, could threaten our nations economic prosperity, alter the way we live our lives, and threaten our national security.Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham, March 20, 2003

Renewables utilized in gasoline [ethanol] play an important role and will continue growing well into the future.
Red Caveney, President and CEO, American Petroleum Institute, Congressional Testimony, March 29, 2001

Our national security is inextricably linked to our countrys energy securityprojected climate change is a threat multiplier in already fragile regions of the world, exacerbating conditions that lead to failed statesthe breeding grounds for extremism and terrorismThere is a relationship between carbon emissions and our national securitywe think that the evidence is there that would suggest that we have to start paying attentioncarbon emissions are clearly part of the problemwe will pay for this one way or anotherwe will pay to reduce greenhouse gas emissions today, and well have to take an  conomic hit of some kind. Or, we will pay the price later in military terms. And that will involve human lives. There will be a human toll.Comments of several former military leaders at the release of their study entitled National Security and the Threat of Climate Change, April 17, 2007,
www.SecurityAndClimate.cna.org

But in the interests of our national security, our climate, and our pocket books, we should now move together as a nation indeed as a community of oil importer nations to destroy, not oil of course, but oils strategic role in transportation as quickly and as thoroughly as possible. The national security  reasons to destroy oils strategic role are substantial. Over two-thirds of the worlds proven reserves of conventional oil lie in the turbulent states of the Persian Gulf, as does much of the oils international infrastructure. Increasing dependence on this part of the world for our transportation needs is subject to a wide range of perils. Just over a year ago, in response to bin Ladens many calls for attack on such infrastructure, al Qaeda attacked Abcaiq, the worlds largest oil production facility, in northeastern Saudi Arabia. Had it succeeded in destroying , e.g., the sulfur-clearing towers there through which about two-thirds of Saudi crude passes say with a simple mortar attack it would have succeeded in driving the price of oil to over $100 per barrel for many months, perhaps close to bin Ladens goal of $200 per barrel. What we need is a transportation fuel that is as secure as possible, as clean as possible and as cheap as possible. Today, oil meets none of these needs.
Former CIA Director James Woolsey, Member of the National Energy Commission, before the Senate Finance Committee, April 19, 2007

A new study ordered by the Pentagon warns that the rising cost and dwindling supply of oil the lifeblood of fighter jets, warships, and tanks will make the U.S. militarys ability to respond to hot spots around the world unsustainable in the long term. The costs of relying on oil to power the military are consuming an increasing share of the militarys budget. Energy costs have doubled since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the cost of conducting operations could become so expensive in the future that the military will not be able to pay for some of its new weapon systems. All four branches of the military must fundamentally transform their assumptions about energy, including taking immediate steps toward fielding weapons systems and aircraft that run on alternative and renewable fuels.
Boston Globe, May 1, 2007

The developing world will bear the brunt of the collateral damage from our historic global warming emissions, but the United States will experience its own self-inflicted wounds, including threats to our national security and military readiness.
Chairman Edward J. Markey, (D-MA). Chairman, Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, April 17, 2007

The U.S. has been very blessed by the age of oil. The age of oil isnt sustainable.
Retired Navy Vice Admiral Dennis McGinn, CQ, April 20, 2007

We have to create new jobs every 5-7 years. I would love to claim credit for the jobs created on my watch but they were started by the information technology revolution. Those jobs permeated quality jobs throughout the United States and drove the economy. Today, that same opportunity exists with expanding biofuels, solar, wind, and other renewable energy sources. We are missing a great opportunity. If I were running for office today, I would run on that issue alone and tell the American public that if you dont want renewables, you dont want me.
Former President Bill Clinton, Center for American Progress speech, Georgetown University, 2006

The American Petroleum Institute estimated that the presence of ethanol causes gasoline prices to be 0.27% lower than would occur without ethanol. The total cost savings to the consumer is approximately $270 million per year.
U.S. Department of Energy

Growth in the energy sector continues to create a variety of job opportunities for skilled tradespeople. This is especially evident with ethanol plants. The extensive piping, boiler, and pressure vessel work at an ethanol plant requires special skills that our members provide. The duration of these projects and the geographic diversity of the plant locations will continue to be an important part of the skilled trades work load in both urban and rural areas of  many states.
Mark McColley, Business Manager, Steamfitters & Plumbers Local Union # 464, January 2007

Ethanol production increases Americas global competitiveness. More U.S. made products are exported. The number of manufactured goods increases and  investment in the U.S. grows. Ultimately, we will keep jobs and increase the number of better paying American jobs.
Rep. Tom Osborne (R-NE)

According to our analysis, an RFS of 8 billion gallons could have a positive effect on the farm economy. While impacts vary by commodity, net farm income would increase. The construction boom in ethanol plants experienced over the last five years would continue generating rural jobs. The nations reliance on crude oil and gasoline imports would decline slightly and its fuel source would become more diversified. The ethanol  roduction boom provided by the RFS would attract more financial capital into ethanol production that would improve the production and delivery infrastructure and in likelihood continue the advance in production efficiencies that are reducing ethanols cost of production.
Keith Collins, Chief Economist, U.S. Department of Agriculture; Testimony before U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, July 2005

A study by Northwestern University concluded that ethanol is responsible for more than 195,000 domestic jobs and increases farm income by $4.5 billion a year. The ethanol industry adds over $450 million tostate tax receipts and improves the U.S. trade balance by $2 billion annually. This is all done at net  savings of $3.6 billion a year to the federal government.
Gov. Terry Branstad (R-IA), August 8, 1997

The Renewable Fuel Standard (EPAct 2005) wouldcreate more than 200,000 jobs nationwide and boost U.S. farm income by $6 billion per year.
U.S. Senator Chuck Hagel, (R-NE) Feb. 14, 2003

World renowned investor Warren Buffett says he islosing faith in the soundness of U.S. currency as an investment vehicle because the U.S. is running a huge trade deficit close to $500 billion [in 2003], and rising rapidly that is causing income to flow out of the country at such a rapid rate that it will soon become unsustainable. Buffett warns that the rapidly mounting U.S. trade deficit could lead to a dramatic plunge in the value of the dollar and a host of additional economic consequences that could add up to disaster for American families.
Forbes Magazine, November 2003 59

The deficit in 2005 was 20% greater than 2004 and more than twice as large as just four years earlier. Its going to start to snowball ... were at a tipping point. No industrial nation has ever run a deficit this size.
Catherine Mann, Institute for International Economics, 2006

With America now importing 60% of the oil we use and a national bill for this habit that came to $250 billion last year, there is simply no time to waste. With worldwide demand growing rapidly, and with concern about the environmental impact of greenhouse gases rising, the deployment of clean, reliable sources of energy is clearly in our national interest.
Secretary of Energy Samuel W. Bodman

In the last 10 years, the total of U.S. trade deficits has exceeded $1 trillion. This persistent pattern has contributed significantly to declining real wages and to increasing job insecurity. Most of its victims are middle-income working people. It is estimated that the manufactured goods trade deficit represents a loss of some three million American jobs.
AFL-CIO Executive Council

The U.S. goods trade deficit increased 5% in 1995, considerably slower than the 25% jump between 1993 and 1994. Since 1992, the goods trade gap has widened nearly 82%.
1995 Annual Report, U.S. Trade Representative

The trade deficit for the month of May 2003one monthwas $41 billiona total for the entire year in 1984.
U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Economic Analysis press release, Aug. 14, 2003

In the 1980s, the U.S. merchandise trade balance ballooned from a deficit of $19 billion in 1980 to $53 billion in 1983, and then doubled in a year, to $106 billion in 1984. Last year (1996) it stood at $188 billion, setting a new high record for the third consecutive year.
U.S. Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV), March 19, 1997

I will vigorously oppose efforts in the Senate to increase anybodys taxes, including taxes on ethanol. And in any case, we should not raise taxes on renewable fuels since such taxes are not in the interest of the economy, the environment or Texas and American corn growers.
Senator Phil Gramm (R-TX), September 1995

In the last two decades, ethanol has grown from a fledgling industry to make a real contribution to our environment, our national economy, and our efforts to wean ourselves from foreign sources of energy. ...To continue the progress made so far, and to provide Americans with a choice of oxygenated fuels, it is critical that we extend these tax incentives beyond 2000. Only by extending these incentives until 2007 will farmers and renewable fuels producers have the certainty they need to invest in new ethanol plants and thus to further expand our domestic renewable fuels industry.
President Bill Clinton, July 31, 1997

The incentive is claimed by thousands of gasoline marketersmostly independent, small businesses that sell ethanol blends all across the country. In other words, the incentive is claimed at corner gas stationsnot in corporate boardrooms.
Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL), May 1997

I support the ethanol tax benefit. I support the current ethanol program and would support its extension beyond the 2007 expiration date.
President George W. Bush, November 2000

Whats wrong with using the tax breaks to spur domestic energy production? Weve certainly done it in the past, and, with our precarious dependence on foreign oil, we will have to do much more of it in the future. Money invested in producing domestic fuels, whether ethanol, methanol, shale oil, or coal liquids and gases, is money spent in this country and not money lost to OPEC. It stimulates the economy, creates jobs, and most importantly, helps free us from our addiction to imported oil.
U.S. Senator Birch Bayh (D-IN), December 3, 1980