Food groups sue U.S. for ethanol boost in gasoline

Reuters Africa
Tue Nov 9, 2010 7:35pm GMT
By Timothy Gardner

* EPA had ruled 2007 and newer cars can burn E15
* Food groups say ethanol boost would raise prices
* EPA E15 decision on 2001 to 2006 cars expected soon

WASHINGTON, Nov 9 (Reuters) - Livestock producers and food industry groups filed a suit on Tuesday seeking to overturn a U.S. decision to allow higher levels of ethanol in gasoline, saying it could push up food prices.

The Grocery Manufacturers Association, the National Meat Association and other groups sued the Environmental Protection Agency, saying regulators overstepped their authority when they ruled last month that gasoline retailers could sell fuel containing up to 15 percent ethanol. That is an increase from the current allowable level of 10 percent.

The EPA ruled that cars built in 2007 and later could burn the fuel, known as E15.

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Big Corn takes on Big Oil over ethanol

Growers group mounts PR campaign pointing to energy as culprit for high food costs

By Steve Tarter
of the Journal Star
Posted Aug 18, 2008 @ 08:47 PM
PEORIA —
After corn was singled out earlier this year for contributing to rapid price increases in food and fuel, the Bloomington-based Illinois Corn Growers Association decided to fight back.

Corn and corn-based ethanol came under attack earlier this year in a public-relations campaign spearheaded by the Washington, D.C.-based Grocery Manufacturers Association.

The GMA questioned federal policy that diverted food crops for fuel while forming Food Before Fuel, a coalition of food, consumer and environmental groups, said association spokesman Scott Openshaw.

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Food Before Fuel Campaign Launches, Aims to Encourage Congress to Reconsider Food-To- Fuel Policies

Date Posted: Jun. 10, 2008

WASHINGTON—June 10, the Food Before Fuel Campaign - a partnership of more than 20 environmental, retail, hunger, Hispanic and food industry groups - launched a cooperative effort urging Congress to revisit the nation's food-to-fuel policies, a key factor in the growing global food crisis.

Congressional policies mandate the conversion of more than one-third of all U.S. corn to ethanol, with additional subsidies and tariffs further promoting the diversion of food to fuel. Food policy experts broadly agree that these policies have contributed to record food price inflation, and the International Monetary Fund reports that U.S. food-to-fuel policy is responsible for more than 30 percent of food price inflation globally.

According to the Campaign's statement of principles, the members will encourage policymakers to "revisit and restructure policies that have increased our reliance on food as an energy source, and to carefully address how to develop alternative fuels that do not pit our energy needs against affordable food and environmental sustainability."

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Under Secretary Dorr delivers keynote address at CUTC

High Plains/Midwest Ag Journal
By Doug Rich

Ethanol, once the poster child for biofuels, has come under attack recently as food prices rise in this country. In his keynote address at the Corn Utilization & Technology Conference, Thomas Dorr, U. S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Under Secretary for Rural Development, defended the ethanol industry.

"One would think that with all of the contributions that ethanol has made to this country that it would be celebrated, but in recent weeks we have seen a substantial assault on biofuels," Dorr said.

Dorr said much of the food versus fuel controversy has been orchestrated by a slick public relations campaign funded by the Grocery Manufacturers Association. Unfortunately, this attack has fallen on fertile ground. There are a number of reasons why this attack has been so successful.

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Putting Ethanol on the Offensive

Ethanol Producer Magazine
July 2008
By Toni Nuernberg

December 1776 was a desperate time for George Washington and the American Revolution. The ragtag Continental Army, encamped along the Pennsylvania shore of the Delaware River, was exhausted, demoralized and uncertain of its future.

Washington’s army—after narrowly escaping British troops and retreating into Pennsylvania—was viewed as merely an annoyance soon to be swatted into oblivion like a bothersome bee at a picnic.

2008 may feel like similarly desperate times for the renewable fuels movement and the U.S. ethanol industry. Dogged by naysayers from environmentalists to the oil industry and humanitarian organizations to others within American agriculture, we find our industry accused of causing a global food crisis.

At this point in the American Revolution, Washington recognized he had to do something and quickly. His decision was to attack the British.

The Ethanol Promotion and Information Council, through the Renewable Fuels Now campaign, has followed Washington’s lead, attacking our foes in the food-vs.-fuel war of words.

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Grocers, farmers take their ethanol fight to Capitol Hill

ChicagoTribune.com
By CHRISTOPHER LEONARD AP Business Writer
2:50 PM CDT, June 3, 2008

ST. LOUIS - The rhetoric is set to heat up this summer over the use of crop-based fuels like ethanol, as a number of activist groups will protest biofuels as a key reason for rising food costs. While the voices might be many, the source behind them is a single food lobbying group.

The Grocery Manufacturers Association plans a high-profile campaign against biofuels that will draw together diverse groups like hunger-prevention advocates and environmental activists. Documents leaked to the media this month show the GMA has hired the high-end Washington lobbying firm Glover Park Group to coordinate the campaign.

Farm state senators -- from Iowa's Charles Grassley to Missouri's Kit Bond -- are crying foul. They say food companies should support farmers who are seeing high corn prices for the first time in years. They also say the campaign is misleading, and that ethanol makes only a tiny contribution to rising food prices.

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Corn Growers, Others Outraged Over Massive Disinformation Campaign

National Corn Growers Association
(5-15-08)

Grower leaders from the National Corn Growers Association joined members of Congress and others Thursday to express extreme disappointment in the revelation that many of the highest profile U.S. food companies may have supported a high-dollar dollar public relations campaign to smear farmers and ethanol fuel rather than acknowledge the truth about the direct link of rising food prices to the cost of foreign oil.

According to reports in the Capitol Hill publication Roll Call, their staff members obtained confidential documentation of the effort.

“Rising food and fuel prices have led the biofuels industry to take a beating on Capitol Hill the past few weeks, the Wednesday Roll Call article stated. “But the pummeling hasn’t been by chance — it’s part of a concerted effort spearheaded by the Grocery Manufacturers Association and the Glover Park Group. GMA has been leading an ‘aggressive’ public relations campaign for the past two months in an effort to roll back ethanol mandates that passed in last year’s energy bill.

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Anti-ethanol Lobby Launches "Food Before Fuel Campaign"

CBS News.com
By Patrick O'Connor
May 20, 2008

(The Politico) Anyone looking for evidence about the massive challenge lawmakers face in trying to reduce fuel prices needs to look no further than the escalating fight over ethanol subsidies.

Right about the same time oil executives are set to testify before the House Judiciary Committee on the politically charged issue of skyrocketing gas prices, a broad coalition of agricultural interests, grocers, anti-poverty groups and environmental advocates will launch an aggressive campaign to rollback federal subsidies for corn-based ethanol.

The "Food Before Fuel Campaign" will launch its national outreach effort at the National Press Club in Washington, DC, on Thursday. The rollout has been organized by a broad coalition of agriculture interests and the Grocery Manufacturers Association. These groups are among the chorus of other interests - and legislators - arguing that federal subsidies for corn-based ethanol are contributing to rising food costs.

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