Obama’s EPA forced to consider effects of using food for fuel

Since my last post on the stupidity of using food for fuel, almost 300 members of Congress, state governors, organizations and private citizens have written to Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson about our federal biofuels mandate — the Renewable Fuel Standard. The vast majority of these letters are requests for a waiver of the RFS. Section 211(o)(7) of the Clean Air Act (CAA) authorizes the EPA to reduce the mandate for biofuel use if the policy is causing severe economic or environmental harm to a region or the nation. This year, due to the most severe drought since the Dust Bowl, requiring the use of food for fuel has driven up the price of food worldwide, exacerbated climate change and continued to degrade our air, water and soil.

Jose Graziano da Silva, the director-general of the Food and Agriculture Organization for the United Nations, wrote in a recent op-ed for the Financial Times that “the US must take biofuel action to prevent a food crisis…an immediate, temporary suspension of [the Renewable Fuel Standard] mandate would give some respite to the market and allow more of the crop to be channeled towards food and feed uses.” Friends of the Earth will urge the EPA to consider suspending the RFS given the negative consequences of biofuel production on the environment as well.

To see what state governors had to say about the effects of the RFS on their local economies, see their letters to the EPA here: Arkansas, North Carolina, Georgia, New Mexico, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware and Texas.

Cartoon by Mike Adams of www.NaturalNews.com