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1AC RFS Adv

An unholy alliance of Big Oil, the Green Meanies, and Livestock groups are mobilizing to eliminate the Renewable Fuel Standard
Amanda Peterka 12 (“Fear and loathing on Hill as Senate RFS group ramps up”, Greenwire, http://eenews.net/public/Greenwire/2012/06/01/2)

On its face, the new bipartisan Senate study group on the renewable fuel standard is simple and straightforward enough. Its organizers, Oklahoma Republican James Inhofe and Delaware Democrat Chris Coons, are said to be interested in bringing in experts to weigh in on the effectiveness of the RFS, which sets mandated goals for U.S. biofuel production. But nothing about biofuels in Washington, D.C., is simple. Interest groups from all sides have a lot of money and influence at stake, and every move by lawmakers and regulatory agencies comes with public outcry and behind-the-scenes political intrigue. The Biofuels Investment and RFS Market Congressional Study Group is no exception. Though it exists only on paper, it is already sending shock waves through the corn ethanol industry, which sees it as an attack orchestrated by petroleum interests, livestock groups and some environmentalists.
"We are absolutely sensing that opponents are mobilizing their forces," said Brian Jennings, executive vice president of the American Coalition on Ethanol. But Stephen Brown, a lobbyist for oil refiner Tesoro Corp., said the group is merely an answer to Senate Environment and Public Works Chairwoman Barbara Boxer's refusal to hold hearings on the RFS. Several groups, mostly opponents of the standard, last fall sent Boxer (D-Calif.) and ranking member Inhofe letters requesting hearings on the mandate, which requires U.S. production of 36 billion gallons of biofuels by 2022, with 15 billion gallons coming from corn ethanol. The requests came from livestock trade groups, the environmental group Friends of the Earth, tax reform groups and limited-government advocates, among others (Greenwire, Dec. 7, 2011). Several lawmakers last year also offered legislation that would open up the standard to new forms of biofuel, including natural-gas-derived fuel, or put a hold on the standard should corn supplies fall below a certain level. "We're all frustrated with Chairman Boxer's refusal to schedule any kind of committee review, evaluation, hearing on the RFS," Brown said in an interview. "I think I understand why she's doing that. She doesn't want to open up another front to defend [U.S.] EPA on." Boxer's office did not respond to a request for comment. Boxer has been a staunch defender of the RFS, which she voted for in 2007; Inhofe voted against the legislation. According to a spokesman for a biofuels company, Boxer staff members say the senator is looking for ways to get EPA to act more quickly on the standard to help open the market for cellulosic biofuel. "She thinks EPA is moving too slowly," said the company spokesman, who requested anonymity due to the issue's political sensitivity. But the ethanol industry's Jennings said that until he is "convinced otherwise," he does not trust a congressional memo that says the group has no intention of drafting a bill to undo part of the RFS. "The tone of the memo, the two leading congressional offices, the constituencies that they are most influenced by all point to this as being one of those exercises," he said. "If in Washington, if you're not at the table you're on the menu." 'Paranoid' According to one representative from an oil company, several trade groups worked with Inhofe and Coons to come up with the idea for the study group. The group plans to host briefings on the RFS, its contribution to reduced use of petroleum in the transportation sector and how it has affected commodity prices, according to the memo obtained by Greenwire (Greenwire, May 31). The group also plans to explore fraud in the renewable fuel credit-trading market, biofuels' contributions to greenhouse gas emissions reductions, infrastructure challenges in the marketplace and investments in biofuels. Briefings will feature both proponents and opponents of the RFS  but nobody from the corn ethanol industry. Tesoro's Brown said the corn ethanol industry was being "paranoid." The time was ripe, he said, to evaluate how the standard has worked over the past five years. "They seem to think all these folks are getting together with the idea of slicing the tires of the RFS," he said. "A lot of others aren't. They're interested in tweaking or reforming the RFS." A representative from the advanced biofuels industry, on the other hand, said that while he was worried about attacks on the renewable fuel standard, he wasn't so much worried that the study group would put forth any kind of RFS bill. The representative, who also wished to keep his name out of the discussion, said the study group idea was sparked because the lawmakers  there are 16 involved  were tired of stakeholder groups "beating their doors down." But most of the senators involved, he said, "believe the RFS is a fundamental policy. Most of the people who have been named all support the RFS in some way, shape or form." The corn ethanol industry, he added, is angry "because they didn't get invited." Friends of the Earth, which was not involved in the formation of the study group, is "happy that the Senate is taking leadership to review the RFS," said Michal Rosenoer, the group's biofuels policy campaigner. "I think the corn ethanol industry of course is worried  the RFS is a de facto mandate for corn ethanol," she said. "But it's not just about corn ethanol anymore. As people become disillusioned with corn ethanol, there's a growing interest in advanced biofuels  but there are a lot of dangers in advanced biofuels, too." Several industry insiders have referred to an "unholy alliance" of environmentalists, the oil industry and livestock groups whose singular goal is to tear down the RFS. Rosenoer disputed rumors on the Hill that the groups are in a coordinated coalition to bring it down.

Critics of the RFS are pushing to curtail the program due to spiraling corn and grain prices
Clean Energy Report 8/6/12 ( “NEW BIPARTISAN SENATE GROUP READIES RFS STUDY, INTENSIFYING REFORM DEBATE”, lexis, accessed 8/19)

Senate staff are expected to launch as soon as this week a bipartisan investigation into the market impacts of EPA's renewable fuel standard (RFS), a move that will likely aid the program's critics make the case to reform or eliminate it while intensifying debate on RFS reform that biofuel advocates had sought to avoid until after the November elections.
The study group, known formally as the "Senate Biofuels Investment and Renewable Fuels Standard Market Congressional Study Group," will be co-chaired by Sens. James Inhofe (R-OK), the ranking member on the Environment & Public Works Committee, and Chris Coons (D-DE), who are both critics of corn ethanol mandates. Launch of the study group, which was first reported by Greenwire earlier this year, comes as livestock, oil and other industry critics are blaming the RFS's biofuel blend mandates for spiraling corn and grain prices, saying it shows the need to curtail or otherwise kill the program. The critics are pushing a host of legal, legislative and administrative measures to curb ethanol mandates at times when corn prices are high. In anticipation of the launch, a coalition of livestock producers, including the National Chicken Council, American Feed Industry Association, American Meat Institute, American Sheep Industries Association, National Cattlemen's Beef Association, National Pork Producers Council and National Turkey Federation, July 19 released the first in a series of reports that show that the RFS is driving food and grain prices higher. The study conducted by a food industry consulting firm, FarmEcon, LLC, refutes claims by the ethanol industry that the RFS has reduced the price of gasoline and foreign oil imports. The study also says corn prices continue to rise as a result of the RFS's ethanol mandate, with the per-bushel price of corn tripling in the years since the implementation of the program. "The rate of change for the Consumer Price Index for meats, poultry, fish and eggs increased by 79 percent while it decreased by 41 percent for non-food items since the RFS was revised in 2007," according to a press release on the study.
"As a Senate Biofuels Investment and Renewable Fuels Standard Market Congressional Study Group examines several aspects of the RFS, the study will provide critical facts needed to reform the current standard," according to a statement from the chicken council. The study found that ethanol has had no effect on curbing the nation's reliance on foreign oil, while tripling corn prices in a short period of time. The oil industry, which is also seeking to reform the program, earlier this month called on Congress to "open the RFS" and reform the program.
American Petroleum Institute President Jack Gerard called on lawmakers at a mid-July hearing on biofuels policy before the House Energy and Commerce Committee's power subcommittee to reform the RFS by significantly changing or dropping the program's cellulosic ethanol mandate. The oil and gas industry says there is no cellulosic ethanol being produced to meet the standard and the industry should not be forced to comply with the mandate.
The oil industry is also highlighting other problems with the RFS, such as fraud in the biofuels credit trading market, saying this underscores the need for systemic reform, according to industry sources. But the Renewable Fuels Association, together with several other conventional and advanced biofuels groups, is standing its ground against the intensifying RFS reform lobbying campaign. The biofuel groups are opposing any attempts to open the RFS, fearing that tampering with the mandate could hurt the industry and deter the development of second-generation fuels that do not rely on grain feedstocks  like cellulosic ethanol.
Host Of Measures The program's critics, however, are pushing a host of measures to curtail the program. Many of the industry groups filed a July 30 petition with EPA, urging the agency to waive the program's blend mandates to prevent severe economic harm from high grain prices.
The groups argue in the petition that the amount of corn used for renewable fuel production creates upward pressure on food prices and raises industry costs for livestock production. The petition says the severe drought gripping the nation is causing incredible duress for crop producers, and waiving the RFS mandate would help alleviate the economic harm hitting the agriculture sector, according to the groups.
And in Congress, Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD) in late July introduced legislation to curb RFS mandates until corn prices drop below a certain level. The bill would establish a new process requiring EPA to reduce the RFS's ethanol production mandates by a specific amount if supplies of corn tighten. In the House, RFS critics are supporting H.R. 3097, sponsored by Reps. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) and Jim Costa (DCA), that would "require a biannual review of ending corn stocks relative to their total use," according to a statement from the chicken council, representing a coalition of several livestock producers."If the ratio falls below 10 percent, the RFS could be reduced by 10 percent. If it falls below 7.5 percent, the mandate could shrink by 15 percent; below 6 percent, it could be reduced by 25 percent; and if the ratio falls below 5 percent, the ethanol mandate could be cut by 50 percent," according to the statement.  John Sicilian

They’ll target the new Congress
Bob Dinneen 7/11/12 (President and CEO of the Renewable Fuels Association, Ethanol Producer Magazine, http://ethanolproducer.com/articles/8938/there-they-go-again-attacking-the-renewable-fuels-standard)

Calling themselves “The Biofuels Investment and RFS Market Congressional Study Group,” staff members for at least eight U.S. Senators are conducting “a seed-to-wheels examination” of the renewable fuels standard (RFS), setting the stage for legislation in the next session of Congress. Observers are saying a coalition of odd bedfellows—food groups, environmentalists and the oil industry—are teaming up against the ethanol industry for what is expected to be a multiyear campaign to weaken or repeal the RFS, starting with the 113th Congress which ends January 2015. 

Banning the RFS without having an energy system to replace ethanol would be a disaster—results in massive oil shocks and the next Great Depression
Kruse, 8 (David Kruse, president of CommStock Investments,Inc., author and producer of The CommStock Report, an ag commentary and market analysis; 7/28/08; “Deleting ethanol from U.S. fuel production systems would hard consumers” http://www.timesrepublican.com/page/content.detail/id/508725.html) 

With so much public focus being put on oil and gasoline prices, it's difficult to imagine EPA doing anything that would send pump prices higher, potentially sharply higher. While many impacted by corn prices are "whining" as Phil Gramm puts it, the ethanol industry has become a large enough part of the U.S. fuel production system that deleting it now would have an unequivocally worse impact on consumers from raising pump prices than it has had in raising food costs. No matter how much oil there is, there is a finite capacity in the U.S. to refine petroleum. The failure to build new petroleum refineries in the U.S. limits the U.S. ability to grow gasoline or distillate production to meet demand. While it's little talked about, ethanol made a significant contribution to U.S. refinery capacity. Albeit, ethanol plants refine corn into ethanol, the concept and result is the same. Ethanol plants are refineries. They were a welcome expansion to U.S. refinery capacity. They are strategically located away from the Gulf where U.S. petroleum refineries are concentrated. That makes them less vulnerable to Gulf hurricanes, a strategic benefit. Ethanol production has added enough to U.S. motor fuel supply to have a significant impact on prices from boosting aggregate motor fuel production. Texas Big Oil and Big Cattle interests have led a fight to roll back the ethanol RFS claiming that the push to produce biofuel was too disruptive. Big Oil still considers ethanol as competition. Big Cattle likes things the way they were, with farmers subsidized to produce grain for feed that they could buy below the cost of production. The truth is, that whatever temporary disruption the ethanol industry has generated impacting food prices, the alternative now is worse. Consumers are paying more for food. Only a minor portion of the higher prices for food is biofuel related. Ironically more of food price inflation is energy price related so ethanol, while raising corn prices, reduces fuel costs significantly reducing the net inflation factor for food prices attributable to ethanol. With gasoline and diesel pump prices setting records at the pump, it's harder for the average consumer to appreciate the impact biofuel has had in lowering those prices. They can't see it now, but they certainly would if the RFS is rolled back or the Blender's Credit is eliminated dumping the ethanol industry. Tom Waterman, editor of the Ethanol Monitor says, "What mainstream media doesn't get, from the Los Angeles Times to TIME magazine, is that it will guarantee that $5.00 gasoline occurs within a month of an announcement to grant Governor Perry's request that the Federal mandate be cut in half. U.S. refiners would suddenly be faced with finding roughly between 320,000 and 350,000 barrels or 13.8 million gallons of gasoline per day immediately. These events are definite if the EPA acts and Congress follows by removing the tariff on Brazilian ethanol. Big oil will be on the road to eliminating a competitor, and Congress will be feeling the pressure to drill everywhere. We still maintain that the U.S. is in a recession right now, and such a move by the EPA could trigger one of the biggest economic catastrophes we've seen since the Great Depression." We are already maxing out U.S. petroleum refinery capacity. To roll back ethanol would essentially cut back a significant portion of U.S. motor fuel refinery capacity. When you hear of a refinery problem - fire, weather, etc - the price of gasoline jumps. Rolling back the RFS would be the equivalent of taking several percent of U.S. motor fuel refinery capacity off-line. That would get the price of gasoline moving sharply higher. Big oil supports rolling back the RFS, not because they can meet U.S. motor fuel demand but because petroleum refinery margins would jump with gas prices. 

Economy is fragile – further shocks risk a double-dip
Muriel Boselli and Barbara Lewis 6/15/11 (Staff Writers, Reuters, “Oil at $120 risks economic double dip: IEA”
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/15/us-energy-summit-iea-idUSTRE75E4B320110615)
(Reuters) - Oil around the current level of close to $120 a barrel risks tipping the world economy into a double dip recession, the International Energy Agency's chief economist said on Wednesday. He also said the Paris-based consumer watchdog was monitoring the supply-demand balance every day to judge whether it was necessary to release strategic stocks.
"If you don't see any softening of the prices, there is a risk of derailing the economy, of a double-dip," Birol told the Reuters Global Energy and Climate Change Summit. "We all know what happened in 2008. Are we going to see the same movie?" Oil prices vaulted to a high above $127 for Brent in April this year following the loss of almost all Libya's roughly 1.6 million barrels per day (bpd) of production. The market has yet to match the 2008 record of more than $147, but Birol noted the average for this year was already higher than in 2008 and the world economy was more fragile. "If you look at the average of 2008, it was around $90, which is much lower than today. The bad news is that even if prices averaged $100, the oil import bill of the major importing nations would be at the same level of 2008." An average of $100 a barrel would mean fuel import bills cost the equivalent of 2.3 percent of gross domestic product and at current levels, the cost was closer to 3 percent, Birol said. The world's leading oil exporter Saudi Arabia has pledged to deliver as much oil as the world needed regardless of OPEC's failure at talks in Vienna last week to reach a new supply deal. 

There’s strong historical data that economic interdependency solves war, but decline leads to escalatory global conflict
Royal 10 Jedediah, Director of Cooperative Threat Reduction at the U.S. Department of Defense, 2010, Economic Integration, Economic Signaling and the Problem of Economic Crises, in Economics of War and Peace: Economic, Legal and Political Perspectives, ed. Goldsmith and Brauer, p. 213-215
Less intuitive is how periods of economic decline may increase the likelihood of external conflict. Political science literature has contributed a moderate degree of attention to the impact of economic decline and the security and defence behaviour of interdependent stales. Research in this vein has been considered at systemic, dyadic and national levels. Several notable contributions follow. First, on the systemic level. Pollins (20081 advances Modclski and Thompson's (1996) work on leadership cycle theory, finding that rhythms in the global economy are associated with the rise and fall of a pre-eminent power and the often bloody transition from one pre-eminent leader to the next. As such, exogenous shocks such as economic crises could usher in a redistribution of relative power (see also Gilpin. 19SJ) that leads to uncertainty about power balances, increasing the risk of miscalculation (Fcaron. 1995). Alternatively, even a relatively certain redistribution of power could lead to a permissive environment for conflict as a rising power may seek to challenge a declining power (Werner. 1999). Separately. Pollins (1996) also shows that global economic cycles combined with parallel leadership cycles impact the likelihood of conflict among major, medium and small powers, although he suggests that the causes and connections between global economic conditions and security conditions remain unknown. Second, on a dyadic level. Copeland's (1996. 2000) theory of trade expectations suggests that 'future expectation of trade' is a significant variable in understanding economic conditions and security behaviour of states. He argues that interdependent states are likely to gain pacific benefits from trade so long as they have an optimistic view of future trade relations. However, if the expectations of future trade decline, particularly for difficult to replace items such as energy resources, the likelihood for conflict increases, as states will be inclined to use force to gain access to those resources. Crises could potentially be the trigger for decreased trade expectations either on its own or because it triggers protectionist moves by interdependent states.4 Third, others have considered the link between economic decline and external armed conflict at a national level. Mom berg and Hess (2002) find a strong correlation between internal conflict and external conflict, particularly during periods of economic downturn. They write. The linkage, between internal and external conflict and prosperity are strong and mutually reinforcing. Economic conflict lends to spawn internal conflict, which in turn returns the favour. Moreover, the presence of a recession tends to amplify the extent to which international and external conflicts self-reinforce each other (Hlomhen? & Hess. 2(102. p. X9> Economic decline has also been linked with an increase in the likelihood of terrorism (Blombcrg. Hess. & Wee ra pan a, 2004). which has the capacity to spill across borders and lead to external tensions. Furthermore, crises generally reduce the popularity of a sitting government. "Diversionary theory" suggests that, when facing unpopularity arising from economic decline, sitting governments have increased incentives to fabricate external military conflicts to create a 'rally around the flag' effect. Wang (1996), DcRoucn (1995), and Blombcrg. Hess, and Thacker (2006) find supporting evidence showing that economic decline and use of force arc at least indirecti) correlated. Gelpi (1997). Miller (1999). and Kisangani and Pickering (2009) suggest that Ihe tendency towards diversionary tactics arc greater for democratic states than autocratic states, due to the fact that democratic leaders are generally more susceptible to being removed from office due to lack of domestic support. DeRouen (2000) has provided evidence showing that periods of weak economic performance in the United States, and thus weak Presidential popularity, are statistically linked to an increase in the use of force. In summary, recent economic scholarship positively correlates economic integration with an increase in the frequency of economic crises, whereas political science scholarship links economic decline with external conflict al systemic, dyadic and national levels.' This implied connection between integration, crises and armed conflict has not featured prominently in the economic-security debate and deserves more attention. 

Expanding sources of biofuels broadens the discussion and prevents the alliance from crippling the RFS
Dan Piller, 2/10/12 (Staff Writer, The Des Moines Register, ‘Big Oil pushing back against biofuels’, http://www.growthenergy.org/news-media/ethanol-in-the-news/vilsack-big-oil-pushing-back-against-biofuels/)

U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack warned an Iowa group in Ankeny Friday that “the Midwest could be damaged” if oil interests succeed in weakening the Renewable Fuel Standard. “Big oil is pushing back against the Renewable Fuel Standard,” Vilsack told a forum at the Des Moines Area Community College in Ankeny. “If they succeed, the consequences could be very serious for the Midwest.” The Renewable Fuel Standard, passed by congress in 2007, mandates use of ethanol and biodiesel for use by cars and trucks. It is the underpinning of demand for ethanol, which now is produced at 41 plants in Iowa with annual revenues totaling about $15 billion. Petroleum industry groups have lobbied against the expansion of ethanol blend to 15 percent last year. Earlier this year the American Petroleum Institute and the Petroleum Refiners Association asked the Environmental Protection Agency to withdraw mandates for use of cellulosic ethanol, that made from crop residue, wood chips or other biomass, because of the slowness of the development of the non-corn ethanol. U.S. Rep. Pete Olsen of Texas has introduced a bill that would amend the Renewable Fuel Standard to include fuels made from coal and natural gas, which is seen as a major boost for Texas T. Boone Pickens’ efforts to switch much of the U.S. truck fleet from diesel to natural gas power. Olsen renewed the most widely-used criticism of corn-fed ethanol, saying “the RFS’s focus on corn ethanol has translated into higher feed costs for livestock producers and higher food costs for working families.” At a biodiesel conference last week Charles Drevna, president of the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers, called the Renewable Fuels Standard 2, passed in 2007, “an anachronism.” Drevna noted the unexpected surge in U.S. domestic fossil fuel production in recent years, from the Bakken oil field in North Dakota and shale natural gas fields both in the Southwest and also in Pennsuylvania, Ohio and West Virginia. He said “in 2007 when the Renewable Fuel Standard policy was drafted, we thought we were an energy-poor country. Since then of course, domestic oil and natural gas deposits have been producing record amounts of fossil energy.” U.S. Rep. Leonard Boswell (D.-Ia.) said Friday that the Renewable Fuel Standard is under assault in Washington and said  “Big Oil has a lot of power. They’re working against the RFS. I hope we can hold them off.” Vilsack said he wanted the political discussion to avoid becoming a regional fight between Midwestern corn agriculture and Texas-based petroleum. “This is why it is important to develop other sources of biofuels besides corn, so the argument isn’t just about corn and the Midwest,” Vilsack said after the meeting. “For instance, there are grasses and wood sources in the south and east that also can be developed into biofuels feedstocks.” Corn-fed ethanol has faced political b4lowback because of its presumed effects on livestock feed costs. Meanwhile noncorn, cellulosic ethanol has taken a black eye because its development has been slower than anticipated when the Renewable Fuel Standard was passed five years ago. Cellulosic ethanol production in the U.S. is virtually nonexistent. Two corn residue plants, at Nevada and Emmetsburg in Iowa, will be under construction this year for opening in 2013. Meanwhile the Environmental Protection Agency has for the last two years been obliged to postpone guideline targets for cellulosic ethanol use by motorists. Even so, oil companies are still obliged to pay for blending credits, known as Renewable Identification Numbers (RIN), which has drawn industry ire.

Broadening the RFS is a middle ground solution that slows the momentum against the RFS
Energy Washington Week 6/18/08 (nqa, “Senate Energy Committee Eyes RFS Revisions To Ease Rising Food Prices,” pg nexisgreenhill-ef)

Key members of the Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee are suggesting changes are needed to the recently enacted renewable fuels standard to allow greater use of non-agriculture-based feedstocks in fuel production in response to rising food prices. The senators say the RFS definition should be expanded to include algae-derived fuels, referred to as "green crude" and other emerging technologies, as well as forestry wastes. The senators' comments are significant because they might indicate a political compromise in the emerging food versus fuel debate, which has prompted some Senate Republican leaders to call for a freeze on the current RFS. But committee senators, both Democrats and Republicans, are suggesting a broadening of the RFS definition could address the issue. At a June 12 committee hearing, a senior DOE official also indicated support for such revisions to the RFS. The current RFS, enacted as part of the 2007 energy law, requires the use of 36 billion gallons of renewable fuels by 2022. At the hearing, Sens. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Bob Corker (R-TN) both expressed strong support for changes to the RFS. Wyden said a provision that prohibits woody biomass culled from national forest land needs to be re-examined, while Corker said the RFS definition needs to be expanded to include algae-based fuels. Rising global food prices have led some lawmakers to call for the RFS to be dramatically reduced, either permanently or for one year. But committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) appeared reluctant to change the mandate so drastically, saying it would chill investment in a second generation biofuels. Rather than these changes, he suggested that diversifying the feedstocks away from food crops would be a better path. A committee staffer describes the hearing as a "fact-finding" effort which could inform legislative changes to the RFS. An industry source said legislation would likely be introduced next year. "I am concerned that altering that path now would not only be unfair to the industry that is responding to the government policies that have already been put in place, but also would have negative implications for second-generation fuels," Bingaman said at the hearing. "As we diversify away from biofuel feedstocks that compete with our grain supply, we also diversify the geographic production areas beyond the current base in the Midwest." 

Big Oil pressuring Congress to eliminate the RFS completely – the new Congress will have to act
Kris Bevill, 6/12/12 (Staff Writer, Ethanol Producer the Magazine, “The Battle for RFS” http://ethanolproducer.com/articles/8857/the-battle-for-the-rfs)

Meanwhile, API is doing what it can to convince legislators to downgrade RFS requirements, or eliminate the policy completely. Greco says he believes pressure is growing in Congress to act in response to the various issues brought up by the petroleum groups, including cellulosic biofuels production, the blendwall and invalid renewable identification numbers in the biodiesel industry. Dinneen expressed confidence that no action will be taken this year. However, it’s up in the air what will happen when a new Congress enters Washington, D.C., next year. “Certainly there will be legislative activity,” he says. “The long arm of Big Oil is going to make sure there is a constant drumbeat of negative attention on the RFS. Our job is to make sure there is a constant response so that members of Congress and the public understand the real benefits of the RFS.

1AC Food

Biofuels push over the brink of already tightened food market – alt causes are manageable
Walsh ‘11
Brian Walsh, Senior writer for TIME magazine, covering energy and the environment “Why Biofuels Help Push Up World Food Prices” Monday, Feb. 14, 2011 http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2048885,00.html
It's easy to miss amid the drama of Egypt — though the two stories are connected — but the world is in the grip of a full-blown food crisis. According to the U.N., world food prices hit a record high in January, meaning food is now more expensive than it has ever been in real terms since the U.N. first began tracking the numbers in 1990. Grains, in particular, are more expensive than ever, with corn prices up 53% in 2010, wheat up 47% and rice now at its highest level in more than two years. At a time when much of the global economy is still struggling to bounce back from the crisis of the past few years, high food prices could push millions back into poverty and cause millions more to go hungry. "The impact is really being felt, especially in outside the U.S.," says Marie Brill, the senior policy analyst at the antipoverty NGO ActionAid USA. Less clear is what's actually behind the spike in food prices. Bad weather plays a major role — a devastating heat wave in Russia last summer ruined grain harvests and prompted that country to suspend exports, jolting global markets. Excessive heat in the Midwest stunted the corn crop, leading to a 5% drop in production last year. Rising demand for food — especially meat, whose production requires lots of grain and water — in the richer parts of the developing world is straining supplies. And then there's ethanol, the production of which sucks up grain and cropland that could be used for food. In America, 40% of the corn crop is currently diverted to make fuel for cars. "Ethanol uses 4.9 billion bushels of corn in the U.S.," says Lester Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute, an environmental think tank. "That's enough grain to feed 350 million people." Princeton researcher Tim Searchinger, in a column last week in the Washington Post, argued that biofuels are contributing to the food crisis. He noted that biofuels — both corn-based ethanol in the U.S. and biodiesel, which depends on palm oil, elsewhere — now consume more than 6.5% of the world's grain and 8% of its vegetable oil. That's up from 2% and virtually nothing in 2004. In a tight world food market, tightened by bad weather, that diversion of grain and oil makes a difference for food prices, especially in developing countries where a rise in the price of staples is passed directly to consumers. (In developed countries, marketing and packaging often make up the lion's share of food value, cushioning consumers from a rise in staple grains.) "Today, the market is out of equilibrium," Searchinger wrote. While this year's food-price spike hasn't been thoroughly analyzed, the world went through a similar crisis just around three years ago. In 2007 and 2008, grain prices hit what had been record highs, prompting food riots in a number of developing countries, just as they do today — the high price of bread may have helped spark protests in Tunisia and Egypt. A major review of the 2007-08 food crisis by the International Food Policy Research Institute found that the surge in U.S. corn production for biofuels played a key role in the increase of prices. A 2008 report by the World Bank agreed, pegging the rise of biofuels in Europe and the U.S. as the most important factor in the run-up of prices. "It's pretty simple — corn that could go for food or fuel is diverted to fuel," says Brill. "That influences prices."  The ethanol industry in the U.S., though, is hitting back against the suggestion that it is pushing up food prices. In a press call on Friday, Growth Energy CEO Tom Buis complained that a "highly well-funded and highly orchestrated campaign of misinformation" was overstating the impact of biofuels on food prices. While 4.9 billion bushels of corn may be used for ethanol in the U.S., Buis said that the industry uses "No. 2 yellow corn" — a strain fed to animals, not humans. Also, some of the corn remains after its distillation for food. The industry claims that up to 2 billion bushels of that original 4.9 billion can be recovered and used for animal feed, blunting the impact on food prices. "Ethanol today is 10% of our nation's fuel consumption," said Buis. "If it went away, you would have to find more petroleum to replace that, and you'd see fuel prices go up." No one is arguing that biofuels are solely responsible for driving up food prices. Rising demand and bad weather play significant roles — droughts, heat waves and floods could become more common in the future as the climate warms. Speculators who buy up food futures as investments contribute to price volatility, too, though it can be tough to trace their exact role. But it's clear that in a tighter market, diverting corn and other crops to biofuels will only act to raise prices. That might be worth it if biofuels provided substantial environmental and economic benefits, but there's significant research showing that corn ethanol's carbon footprint isn't much better than that of oil. Nor has ethanol done much to wean the U.S. off foreign oil — replacing 90% of our oil consumption with ethanol would require four times more corn than American farmers produce in total. The world will have 219,000 more mouths to feed tomorrow, and another 219,000 the next day. We'd be wise to use our food for food, not for fuel.

Celanese is cheaper to produce than corn ethanol – the plan allows it to displace corn on the market
Gary Thornton 4/12/12 (Editor of WATT Poultry USA, Thornton discusses legislation, trends, food safety issues and more relating to the poultry and meat industries in the US. “Ethanol production that poultry producers have been praying for”
http://wattagnet.com/Gary_Thornton/Ethanol_production_that_poultry_producers_have_been_praying_for.html

You know about the U.S. federal government’s “all of the above” energy policy to bring new fuel sources to the U.S. marketplace but that doesn’t include fossil fuels because they compete with wind, algae, corn and other favored industries. So, you won’t be surprised to learn that a Dallas-based chemicals company is ready to produce ethanol for fuel from abundantly available natural gas – at lower costs than the corn-ethanol industry is able to produce its fuel – but is blocked by existing law from doing so. Advanced Fuel Technologies, a division of Celanese Corporation, has developed a process to produce ethanol from hydrocarbon feedstocks at very competitive costs. The process is projected to have a significant cost advantage when compared to fermentation processes, like those used in the corn-ethanol industry. The company estimates it can make ethanol for a cash cost of only $1.50 a gallon. Diluted ethanol that’s blended into gasoline sells for $2.30 a gallon today. That’s right. The U.S. could use natural gas or coal to produce fuel ethanol to be blended with gasoline and thereby reduce dependence on foreign oil – and without the need for government subsidization. Renewable Fuel Standard stands in the way
Most poultry producers know by heart why this isn’t happening. The 2007 Renewable Fuel Standard law mandates that escalating volumes of ethanol be blended into gasoline, with the top volume at 15 billion gallons in 2015. And this is why fossil-fuel-based ethanols are effectively blocked from even competing for the market. Poultry producers certainly know the costs of this government control. Since the U.S. Congress required that corn-based ethanol be added to gas tanks, corn prices have about tripled. Importantly, the Celanese process, called TCX, would not impact food and feed supply or prices. Furthermore, the technology is very energy efficient, produces limited amounts of waste and uses virtually no water.

NOW IS THE CRITICAL TIME – 95% OF THE PLANET COULD BE A CROP SEASON AWAY FROM DEATH – THE ONLY WAY TO AVERT THIS IS TO TRANSITION AWAY FROM BIOFUELS
Adams, 8 (Mike, natural health author and technology pioneer “The Biofuels Scam, Food Shortages and the Coming Collapse of the Human Population,” pg online @ http://www.naturalnews.com/023091.html ghs-ef)

So, to repeat, the food bubble is now starting to implode. Wha t does it all mean? It means that as these economic and climate realities unfold, our world is facing massive starvation and food shortages. The first place this will be felt is in poor developing nations. It is there that people live on the edge of economic livelihood, where even a 20% rise in the price of basic food staples can put desperately-needed calories out of reach of tens of millions of families. If something is not done to rescue these people from their plight, they will starve to death. Wealthy nations like America, Canada, the U.K., and others will be able to absorb the price increases, so you won't see mass starvation in North America any time soon (unless, of course, all the honeybees die, in which case prepare to start chewing your shoelaces...), but it will lead to significant increases in the cost of living, annoying consumers and reducing the amount of money available for other purchases (like vacations, cars, fuel, etc.). That, of course, will put downward pressure on the national economy. But what we're seeing right now, folks, is just a small foreshadowing of events to come in the next couple of decades. Think about it: If these minor climate changes and foolish biofuels policies are already unleashing alarming rises in food prices, just imagine what we'll see when Peak Oil kicks in and global oil supplies really start to dwindle. When gasoline is $10 a gallon in the U.S., how expensive will food be around the world? The answer, of course, is that it will be triple or quadruple the current price. And that means many more people will starve. Fossil fuels, of course, aren't the only limiting factor threatening future food supplies on our planet: There's also fossil water. That's water from underground aquifers that's being pumped up to the surface to water crops, then it's lost to evaporation. Countries like India and China are depending heavily on fossil water to irrigate their crops, and not surprisingly, the water levels in those aquifers is dropping steadily. In a few more years (as little as five years in some cases), that water will simply run dry, and the crops that were once irrigated to feed a nation will dry up and turn to dust. Mass starvation will only take a few months to kick in. Think North Korea after a season of floods. Perhaps 95% of humanity is just one crop season away from mass starvation. 

EVEN SMALL FOOD PRICE INCREASES KILL HALF THE PLANET
Lester Brown, President of Earth Policy Institute, MPA at Harvard, Former Advisor to the Secretary of Agriculture, 5 (“Outgrowing The Earth,” http://www.earth-policy.org/Books/Out/) 

“Many Americans see terrorism as the principal threat to security,” said Brown, “but for much of humanity, the effect of water shortages and rising temperatures on food security are far more important issues. For the 3 billion people who live on 2 dollars a day or less and who spend up to 70 percent of their income on food, even a modest rise in food prices can quickly become life-threatening. For them, it is e next meal that is the overriding concern.”

The plan stops the shockwaves through the food system that accentuate the worsening problem of global poverty—we make food more secure and are an effective attack on structural warfare
Foreign Affairs, 07 [May/June. Runge, C. Ford and Benjamin Senauer. “How Biofuels Could Starve the Poor” http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20070501faessay86305/c-ford-runge-benjamin-senauer/how-biofuels-could-starve-the-poor.html] 

The industry's growth has meant that a larger and larger share of corn production is being used to feed the huge mills that produce ethanol. According to some estimates, ethanol plants will burn up to half of U.S. domestic corn supplies within a few years. Ethanol demand will bring 2007 inventories of corn to their lowest levels since 1995 (a drought year), even though 2006 yielded the third-largest corn crop on record. Iowa may soon become a net corn importer. The enormous volume of corn required by the ethanol industry is sending shock waves through the food system. (The United States accounts for some 40 percent of the world's total corn production and over half of all corn exports.) In March 2007, corn futures rose to over $4.38 a bushel, the highest level in ten years. Wheat and rice prices have also surged to decade highs, because even as those grains are increasingly being used as substitutes for corn, farmers are planting more acres with corn and fewer acres with other crops. This might sound like nirvana to corn producers, but it is hardly that for consumers, especially in poor developing countries, who will be hit with a double shock if both food prices and oil prices stay high. The World Bank has estimated that in 2001, 2.7 billion people in the world were living on the equivalent of less than $2 a day; to them, even marginal increases in the cost of staple grains could be devastating. Filling the 25-gallon tank of an SUV with pure ethanol requires over 450 pounds of corn  which contains enough calories to feed one person for a year. By putting pressure on global supplies of edible crops, the surge in ethanol production will translate into higher prices for both processed and staple foods around the world. Biofuels have tied oil and food prices together in ways that could profoundly upset the relationships between food producers, consumers, and nations in the years ahead, with potentially devastating implications for both global poverty and food security.

Plus biofuels is the primary factor in food insecurity—cutting subsidies and lessening restrictions reduces prices substantially by not displacing food

ENACHE, 5/28 [Bogdan C. “Starving the Worlds Poorest” http://mises.org/story/2969] 

This situation is not, however, a natural market phenomenon, but the direct result of various government programs — usually in the world's most developed economies, although developing countries are catching up — that aim to promote more environmentally friendly energy technology or energy self-sufficiency by subsidizing and mandating the diversion of a growing percentage of agricultural commodities such as corn, sugar cane, wheat, and so on, to the production of bioethanol and biodiesel. The increased production of biofuels in the United States, Brazil, Europe, and elsewhere is thus effectively obtained at the expense of food production — or, as it turns out, potentially at the cost of the lives of millions of the world's poorest inhabitants who are now priced out of the market for food. Contemplating the grotesque potential side effects of bioethanol subsidies in the world's most developed economies is almost unbearable. While everyone is affected by higher food prices, for some people they mean only giving up a new pair of shoes or a night out. For others, however, the more costly food puts their very subsistence into question. No doubt, the politicians who came up with the idea of subsidizing the diversion of grain to the production of bioethanol did not intend to starve the world's poorest people; but the fact that the consequences were unintended does not absolve them of responsibility.
Without the plan, subsidies will just continue the starvation of the world’s poorest by corporate elites
Carlson, ‘7 [Charles E. “Corn to Ethanol: US Agribusiness Magic Path To A World Food Monopoly” http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=6933] 

Eight years of Biofuels (ethanol) policy and legislation has cemented in place the first world wide food cabal, which promises a humanitarian disaster, a famine more serious than those caused by any tsunami, earthquake or drought. This crisis is not in the dim future, it is here. Congress has, in a series of acts passed in this millennium, handed the perfect monopoly to what appears to be few giant agribusiness companies that already have enormous economic power, but which may be a much broader cabal. If you can afford $6.00 a gallon for milk, $4.00 for a loaf of bread and still have money left over for a $50.00 steak at Outback, you may be prepared for 2008, but what about the future? Even if you and I may think we are prepared financially to buy food, whatever the cost, we must have concern for the billion souls who are not and who are condemned to starvation by the corn-to-alcohol conversion scheme. Subsidies do not make the giant agribusiness firms criminals, only opportunists. Their Public Relations distortion about the value of grain alcohol as fuel is criminal. Congressmen are the real cheats, for they could acknowledge this if they wanted to, but they do not, so they share in the crimes—grand theft and murder by starvation. This being a “Christian” society, it falls to those who heed Jesus Christ’s repeated admonitions to feed the needy and protect those who cannot protect themselves to stop corn-to-alcohol conversion. Make no mistake this is a moral issue. Many of us Americans still think we have a layer of financial fat and can afford a doubling or tripling of food costs without going hungry. Not so in the third world, and with some in America as well. A friend reminded me, "Meat is not good for us anyway." Some would not mind giving up meat sometimes, but in Darfur or Uganda, there may be no meat or luxury foods to give up. When the price of rice or corn, or beans rises suddenly by a third or half, many will go without. This recently happened in Mexico City with corn tortilla shells; in the third world, the price of corn may be the difference between life and death. Commodity markets are now world markets, when price of corn rises in Chicago the impact is felt in India and Russia. 

1AC Plan Text

Plan: The United States Congress should amend the Clean Air Act to allow ethanol produced from domestic fossil fuel sources other than petroleum to qualify as a conventional biofuel under the renewable fuel standard (RFS). 

1AC Solvency

Adding natural gas derived fuels to the RFS makes them cost competitive and displaces cellulosic ethanol from the market
Christopher Helman, 4/3/12 (Staff Writer, Forbes, “How A Dumb Law Blocks A Great Way To Fuel” Americahttp://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherhelman/2012/04/03/ethanol-minus-the-corn-it-could-fuel-america-if-it-werent-illegal/)

Celanese makes its ethanol by tearing apart and recombining the hydrocarbons found in plentiful natural gas or coal. “We have the best gas-to-liquids and coal-to-liquids technology in the world,” he says. If it works, what Sterin is building will revolutionize the fuel industry. But that’s a very big if.
The problem isn’t science. It’s Washington. Thanks to the 2007 Renewable Fuel Standard law, gasoline refiners are mandated to blend so much plant-based or renewable ethanol into the gas supply that it prevents Celanese or any other fossil-fuel-based ethanols from even competing for the market. Though the RFS caps the blending of corn ethanol at 15 billion gallons a year, it calls for total biofuels blending to grow to 36 billion gallons a year by 2022. Cellulosic ethanol is supposed to make up most of the difference. Maybe you recall President George W. Bush’s 2006 State of the Union address, in which he declared his goal that cellulosic ethanol made from “wood chips and stalks or switchgrass” would be “practical and competitive within six years.” RFS mandated 100 million gallons of cellulosic for 2010, 250 million for 2011 and 500 million this year. But that hasn’t happened, even though the feds under both Bush and Barack Obama pumped $1.5 billion in grants and loan guarantees into upstart cellulosic producers. Most, like Range Fuels, Cello Energy and E3 BioFuels, have ended up bankrupt. Survivors like Abengoa Bioenergy produced fewer than 6 million gallons last year. Amazingly, gasoline refiners are still on the hook. For failing to blend into their mix the mandated quantities of a fuel that does not exist, the refiners have gotten a $10 million bill from the Environmental Protection Agency to pay for their so-called waiver credits. They’re appealing. The corn-dominated ethanol lobby is conflicted about making ethanol out of fossil fuels. On one hand, corn growers don’t want competition from cheap gas. On the other, it’s in the national interest to cut oil imports. “We’re supportive of expanding all renewables and all alternative fuels,” says Matt Hartwig, spokesman for the Renewable Fuels Association. Says Joe Cannon, president of the Fuel Freedom Foundation: “We need every option. There are 2 billion people moving from bicycles to mopeds to cars, and that’s just in India and China.” Thirteen congressmen led by Pete Olson, whose district around Houston, Tex. encompasses dozens of chemical plants, including Celanese, have introduced a bill to add natgas-derived fuels to the RFS. Any change would face attack from the greens but is supported by animal farmers who want cheaper feed corn. “We would prefer not to have the RFS at all,” says a spokeswoman for Olson, “but this is a step in the right direction.”

Amending the RFS allows Celanese to compete  its more profitable than corn and cellulosic
Christopher Helman, 4/3/12 (Staff Writer, Forbes, “How A Dumb Law Blocks A Great Way To Fuel” Americahttp://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherhelman/2012/04/03/ethanol-minus-the-corn-it-could-fuel-america-if-it-werent-illegal/)

Sterin figures Celanese can make ethanol for a cash cost of only $1.50 a gallon. Capital costs, starting with $200 million for the two new plants, will add some 25 cents a gallon. While the diluted ethanol that’s blended into gasoline sells for $2.30 a gallon today, the ­concentrated industrial ethanol that Celanese will make goes for closer to $3. That paves the way for big profits selling to makers of paints, pharmaceuticals and textiles, says Hassan Ahmed, analyst with Alembic Global Advisors. He expects Celanese to be making 300 million gallons a year by 2016, building a $1 billion business with net income of $250 million. Last year it earned $600 million on $6.8 billion in revenues.

AMENDING THE RFS TO BE TECHNOLOGY NEUTRAL SOLVES OUR ADVANTAGES—IT CAUSES A DIRECT TRADEOFF BETWEEN NATGAS AND OTHER BIOFUELS
Fred Upton, R-US Congress, John Barrow, D-US Congress, and Mike Doyle, D-US Congress, 5/6/08 (Political/Congressional Transcript Wire, Congressional Quarterly, “REP. RICK BOUCHER HOLDS A HEARING ON THE RENEWABLE FUELS STANDARD” http://www.alacrastore.com/storecontent/voxantcq/2008tr05060003u94)

UPTON: Well, thank you, and I thank you, my friend, Mr. Chairman, for holding this important and certainly timely hearing. One of the major components of the recently signed Energy Independence and Security Act was an ambitious Renewable Fuels Standard, RFS. I have always been and remain supportive of renewable fuels. However, as we all know, Congress doesn't always get things right. The laws we write are not always perfect and often require reexamination, corrections and oversight. And certainly there are some legitimate concerns with using food for fuel that we need to continue to examine.
I believe that the goal of that legislation was to meet the needs of sound energy policy, environmental policy, as well as national security. Many of the provisions in this new energy package that President Bush signed into law, in fact, meet that criteria. Unfortunately, after further examination and recent economic and environmental studies, the RFS may miss the mark in a few areas. For example, if the goal is to increase our usage of renewable fuel, we should examine the impact on cutting the import tariff, which would certainly bring, hopefully, a flood of renewable fuel to the market. I will be asking our witnesses about that proposal.
I want to be perfectly clear; I support the use and development of renewable fuels. I introduced a bill in the last Congress and again in January last year, along with Mr. Doyle, that requires all gasoline sold in the U.S. after 2012 to contain a minimum of 10 percent renewable fuel, something that the State of Minnesota already has on the books. We were careful not to specify any one technology or source of fuel, allowing the market to fill the need, be it corn- based ethanol, cellulosic or fuel from algae or other renewable source, perhaps even sugar.
The new RFS does not allow our technology-neutral and feedstock- neutral model. I believe that this may be contributing to many of the problems with the RFS. While biofuels, such as ethanol, are not the silver bullet to cut fuel prices or increase supply, they are, in fact, an important part of the overall puzzle, along with conservation, efficient technologies and increasing domestic oil supply through increased production.
Under current law, there is no effective safety valve to allow for unforeseen difficulties in meeting the required ethanol volumes that last for more than a year, such as ethanol production shortfalls. Many proposed plants are being canceled or delayed due to the high cost of corn or inconsistent state laws that prevent refiners from meeting the national renewable mandate. For example, the nation's largest gasoline market, California, limits the amount of ethanol in gasoline to 5.7 percent until 2010. And in 2008, the federal requirement translates to 7.7 percent, in '09 about 9 percent. The California deficit would need to be made up in the rest of the country through increased blending, and some refiners cannot easily meet the California deficit with refineries in the rest of the country since EPA regulations and car warranties currently prohibit blending above 10 percent use in conventional autos.
Recognizing that problem, I introduced a bill with my good friend Charlie Gonzalez that would provide refiners with more time to meet that biofuel mandate. Our legislation would allow a carryforward of up to three calendar years for refiners to make up deficits in meeting the mandate in '08, '09 and '010. For instance, refiners who do not blend in enough renewable fuel in '08 would have until 2011 to make up that deficit. Current law provides refiners who do not blend in enough renewable fuels a shorter, one-year window to make up that deficit. This bipartisan legislation would help avoid supply shortages and price spikes that might otherwise occur. Now, I'm one that reads and signs all of my legislative mail, all of it. And one of the top issues that our constituents are concerned about is certainly the high cost of gasoline. The price of a barrel of oil is strongly entrenched above $100  today the price is over $120  with no sign of retreating. Gasoline prices are on a path towards $4 a gallon, yet America's oil resources remain off limits to exploration. According to the federal government estimates, there is enough oil in deep waters many miles off our coasts and on federal lands to power more than 60 million cars for 60 years. Additionally, if we advance the commercialization of the nation's two-trillion-barrel shale oil resource, we will meet the U.S. oil needs for over two centuries. It would be ideal if we could grow all of our own fuel; however this is not a possibility. And if we overreach, we will be creating even more problems. Along with a strong RFS, if we were permitted to utilize our vast domestic energy resources, prices would fall, and the U.S. would achieve a greater level of energy security. Inexpensive energy helped build our economy into the most powerful and prosperous in the world. And high energy costs obviously take us in the opposite direction. We can all talk about alternative energy. Well, the alternative to our existing policy is to achieve lower prices, along with energy security, by relying on environmentally friendly American energy. American energy includes renewable fuels, coal-to-liquids, oil shale and the vast reserves of domestic oil and natural gas that are being blocked by shortsighted policy. We owe it to the working families to pursue an energy policy with a vision of the future. We cannot stand idly by for another year and allow gas to go up to even perhaps $5 a gallon. And at this point, I would like unanimous consent to put a letter in from API, which I have somewhere in my notes. And with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back my time. Thank you. BOUCHER: Without objection that letter will be made a part of the record. The chair recognizes the gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Barrow, for three minutes. BARROW: I thank the chair. At the outset, I want to commend Ms. Herseth Sandlin for her bill and her legislation, which I think tries to strike the right balance here. I agree with her that we need to sort of widen the definition of what wood waste can be for an effective advanced biofuels policy. But at the same time, I want to make sure that we don't loosen it so much that we end up deranging the market for other products. I have a huge stake in this myself. In my district, in Treutlen County, Georgia, Range Fuels is building the first commercially viable, commercial-scale cellulosic ethanol plant in the country. And it's our plan to try and provide added value of the stuff that has no value right now. And I've advocated very strongly for a substantial grant from the Industry Department to try and jump-start that operation there. And the vision that we have is that things that have no value right now can be better put to advanced biofuels development than stuff that has existing value. And that's a concern I've got because I've also got a stake in this because I sat in the same room with folks in my party,and the leadership of my party are writing checks on Georgia's supply of biomass that we just can't cash in our state. I've sat around with folks and they've said we've got enough biomass in Georgia to do this, do that. We got a lot of other things going on with Georgia biomass right now with the pulp industry and the construction industry. We got a lot of uses for the stuff that we're doing right now in Georgia. You know, we talk about not wanting to pick winners and losers and not try and play favorites with the programs that we initiate. And we adopt programs that ostensibly look neutral in their impact and will rely upon the invisible hand of the marketplace to sort of guide our choices. But if existing technology can only meet a certain mandate in a certain way and incentives geared toward providing that we do it by way of existing technology, we'll find out that the invisible hand is a very heavy hand, and it can derange a lot of existing markets. But what I think we ought to be doing  I can't help but relate to this problem in terms of my own experience as a local elected official. Perhaps we ought to be thinking about this a little bit more of the way county commissioners or city councilman think about zoning decisions, because it's a zero-sum game, though. You change the zoning of a piece of land, and it ain't making any more land. You change the zoning, and you're reducing the supply of land that can be used one way, and you're increasing the supply of the land to be used in another way  zero-sum game. And we ought to be thinking about what we're doing with our energy feedstocks the way city councilman and county commissioners have to think about zoning decisions. What's the highest and best use of this energy feedstock over here, and what's the highest and best use of that energy feedstock over there? And let's don't pretend we're being neutral when actually we're setting things up. Our ostensibly neutral fashion is actually going to take all of the feedstocks being used for one purpose and apply it toward another. So if we can think about that, I think that'll  it's certainly guiding my thinking of this. And I'm interested in hearing what the witnesses have to say about how we can make more effective decisions to take advantage of the marketplace in a neutral  in effect as well as in purpose. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back the balance of my time. BOUCHER: Thank you, Mr. Barrow. The gentleman from Kentucky, Mr. Whitfield, is recognized for three minutes. WHITFIELD: Mr. Chairman, thank you very much, and we genuinely appreciate your holding this hearing this morning on a topic of great importance for the entire country. I might say that recently I met with a group of agriculture leaders, and they made the comment that the nation's energy policy, particularly referring to this mandate on ethanol production, has more of an impact on agriculture than the agricultural policy. So I think it's imperative that we move deliberately and cautiously in trying to reverse a policy until we understand completely the ramifications on it as it relates to agriculture prices, as it relates to oil prices. And so I want to commend the chairman for the hearing. We look forward to some of our witnesses today who have some expertise in this area to help us move forward in a way that is most likely to be correct for our country. And I yield back my time.
BOUCHER: Thank you very much, Mr. Whitfield. The gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Doyle, is recognized for three minutes. DOYLE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, it sometimes happens that we here in Congress pass policies that don't turn out as good in the real world as they looked on the drafting paper. And despite our best intentions and due diligence, the law of unintended consequences rears its ugly head, forcing us to revisit our earlier policy decisions. That's what I believe is happening today in regard to corn-based ethanol. And I commend you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing so that we can again look at the Renewable Fuels Standard so that we can ensure that we get the results we seek without causing more problems in the future. I remember back when we passed the ethanol mandates back in the Energy Policy Act. Corn ethanol was presented almost as a Holy Grail solution to the challenges presented by our dependence on foreign oil. It seemed at the time that we could not only start to break the chains of this dependence but we could do it in a way that would benefit the American farmer and put us on a path to combating global warming. While time has proven that some benefits have resulted in this policy, most notably the increased profits in the agricultural sector, I believe its negatives today far outweighs its benefits. I've said time and time again that there's no silver bullet to address the dual challenges of energy independence and global warming. There's no one policy we can adopt or one technology we can develop to meet these challenges. Unfortunately, our committee and our Congress essentially chose food-based ethanol and encouraged the private sector through authorizations in the tax code to pick this biofuel over others. We must learn from this mistake and roll back these policies. Now don't get me wrong; I'm not advocating for a roll back of the entire Renewable Fuels Standard, as I believe the standard itself can help move us towards energy independence. What I am advocating is that we roll back the support structure that food-based ethanol receives and which other promising biofuels are not. We need to encourage all of these advances, not pick the one we can sell better at home. Food prices are rising, rainforests are being deforested, and we need to understand the real-world realities that this policy has caused. Any food that is used for fuel is a food that won't be used to feed our nation and to a large extent the world. We have other options, such as algae, municipal waste and the like, which offer a path towards energy independence that don't put the burden on the backs of the hungry to pay for it or pay for it by destroying rainforests. In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, we need to revisit this policy and back away from food-to-fuel policies and instead accelerate the development of biofuels that don't put our energy needs ahead of the needs of the hungry or the environment. With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

A FEDERAL RFS IS ESSENTIAL – INEFFICIENT STATE REGULATIONS DETER INVESTMENT
Drevna, 8 (President, National Petrochemical and Refiners Association, NPRA 5/16/08, pg online @ http://www.npradc.org/issues/environmental/NPRA_Dingell_WP_Response.pdf greenhill-ef)

The third White Paper states, “If a patchwork of State or local programs that imposes a burden on interstate commerce causing inefficient or wasteful resource allocation, that factor would weigh in favor of the Federal government having the exclusive or primary role for that portion of a comprehensive climate change program.”4 NPRA agrees that state and regional GHG regulations should be preempted by federal legislation. It is necessary to avoid an inefficient patchwork of conflicting Federal, state and regional regulations. Without explicit Congressional preemption, the result could be a proliferation of state GHG regulations with the potential for considerable interference with the implementation of federal provisions. As an example, the Energy Policy Act of 2005 included a federal Renewable Fuel Standard without explicit state preemption and state legislatures in Louisiana, Missouri, and Washington in 2006 and Oregon in 2007 passed ethanol and/or biodiesel mandates. This could result in negative impacts on fuel supplies and considerable interference with federal RFS provisions (e.g., credit trading, banking credits, identifying liable or obligated parties). Furthermore, not preempting state programs effectively allows a State to place a greenhouse gas obligation on products that are produced in another state. As the third white paper notes, such a scenario would “just shift the location of, rather than decrease national emissions because the sources subject to the more stringent program will need fewer allowances (thus freeing up allowances for sources in other States).”5 This would apply to wide array of products including some that are energy-intensive such as aluminum, cement, gasoline, steel and paper products. Such a scenario would clearly impose a burden on interstate commerce, resulting in an inefficient resource allocation. This situation would also apply to sources that operate in the United States and choose to shift their operations to portions of the world that do not require reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Finally, NPRA agrees with the third White Paper’s concluding statement that “motor vehicle greenhouse gas standards should be set by the Federal government not by state governments: greenhouse gases are global (not local) pollutants, multiple programs would be an undue burden on interstate commerce and would waste societal and government resources without reducing national emissions, and the competing interests of different States should be resolved at the Federal level.”6 

October surprise – Israel strikes cost Obama the election
Dunsmore, Former ABC News Foreign Correspondent, 9-7-’12 (“Dunsmore: An October Surprise in the Mideast?” http://vtdigger.org/2012/09/07/dunsmore-an-october-surprise-in-the-mideast/)
So what about October 2012? Well, if there is an October Surprise this election year, it could be an Israeli attack against Iran’s nuclear facilities. Israel and the U.S. had been planning a massive military exercise in October, involving a record number of troops and U.S. warships in the region. However Time Magazine is now reporting that while these annual war games will take place, the Pentagon is scaling them way back. Evidently the Obama administration didn’t want the Iranians — or the Israelis for that matter — to misconstrue this exercise as a prelude to an Israeli-American attack on Iran. It is certainly no secret that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has little respect for President Barack Obama. And he continues to insist that force is the only way to stop Iran from becoming a nuclear power. But Israel has neither the weapons nor the logistical support systems to successfully attack Iran on its own. For his part, President Obama believes more time must be given for tough international sanctions to take their toll – and for negotiations to play out. He is therefore resisting being dragged into another Middle East war — for the very persuasive reasons that such an unnecessary war would have huge human and economic costs for Americans – and would only delay, not end, Iran’s nuclear program. And yet, if Israel were to attack Iran in October – especially considering Republican candidate Mitt Romney’s total, unquestioning support for Netanyahu — how could President Obama not come to the side of Israel when the Iranians inevitably struck back? America and Obama would be in a total no-win situation. A number of serious analysts now fear that this October Surprise scenario could well take place. Among all the other major negatives, this would constitute an egregious overt effort by a foreign power to manipulate the American election results.
Health care October surprise guarantees Obama loss
Washington Times, 9-12-’12 (Phil Gingerella, “LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Give Obama an October surprise” http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/sep/12/give-obama-an-october-surprise/)
Now that the 2012 presidential campaign is in full swing, the talk of the inevitable Democratic Party “October surprise” against Republicans will heat up. However, Mitt Romney has his own October surprise for the Democrats, courtesy of President Obama. On or about Oct. 15, millions of Americans will be receiving their health insurance packages for next year. Every one of these people will be reminded that their health insurance costs have skyrocketed since Obamacare was passed. Americans wanted lower health care costs. Instead, they have gotten a government takeover of the health care system. Mr. Obama has repeated at every opportunity the tired “under my plan, a family of four will save $2,500 year” line. But that family will actually get a large health insurance cost increase. This November in the voting booth, every American who has health insurance should tell Mr. Obama how they feel about their health care costs under his plan.