2008 Primaries, Views on News, public relations • July 3rd, 2008

Children of the corn

by Chris Lato

In the corn-growing Midwest, members of Congress are picking sides over ethanol. This is shaping up to be a serious campaign issue, but one presidential candidate is walking a tricky line that will be tough to maintain as anger over high gas and food prices grow, and the public gets restless and demands solutions.

To set the stage, U.S. Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner recently sent a piece out to his constituents with the headline: “Ethanol Mandate Must End.” He makes the argument that record prices for gas and groceries can be traced back to a great extent to the mandate, which subsidizes the ethanol industry and gives incentives for farmers to grow more corn to use in fuel.

Sensenbrenner points to studies that contend ethanol is actually bad for the environment in a number of ways – causing more carbon emissions, prompting poor land use decisions, and requiring a huge amount of water to produce ethanol.

Now, consider this bit from a long interview with Barack Obama in the current issue of ‘Rolling Stone’ (I know, I got a lot of column fodder from this issue). The interviewer is the fair-and-balanced Jann S. Wenner, who actually makes a half-hearted attempt to pin Obama down on this one. Wenner actually sounds a little like Sensenbrenner – talk about strange bedfellows.

Jann S. Wenner: You’ve been a big supporter of ethanol. But studies show it doesn’t do anything to reduce global warming, it’s actually a less efficient way to produce energy than gasoline, and it’s contributing to growing food shortages worldwide. Are you going to continue backing it?

Barack Obama: Corn-based ethanol I see as a transitional technology. We’ve got to invest in alternative fuels.

Wenner: This one is ranked as pretty bad.

Obama: I understand, which is why we’re going to have a transition from corn-based ethanol to cellulosic ethanol, not using food crops as the source of energy.

Wenner: So you foresee this coming to an end.

Obama: What I foresee is us transitioning into other ways of developing these energy sources. The fact that we had corn-based ethanol, and that industry has matured, provides us with distribution networks and infrastructure that can ultimately be used for other ethanol sources.

Wenner doesn’t touch on why Obama has been a big supporter of ethanol, and notice Obama is carefully refusing to explicitly bash ethanol. He has his reasons – read this fascinating New York Times story to get the scoop on why this is.

For starters, I’m not a scientist but I have to think it’s not as easy as just flicking a switch to make such a massive change in the production of ethanol. Will the government be funding such a massive changeover? How long would it take? What about farmers being pushed to make a big change in what they grow, such as switchgrass, which Obama has said could be used to make cellulosic ethanol?

Also, Obama is a Senator from a corn-growing state. He has voted for the ethanol mandate in the past. Does he now repudiate that vote? Will he continue to support corn-based ethanol, of immediately push in a new direction? What will his friends in the ethanol industry think?

No one asked me, but I would suggest Obama rethink his campaign structure when it comes to those he is relying on as energy advisors, and make a stronger effort to advance his energy agenda specific to ethanol. The public is moving past rhetoric and looking for answers every time they put $80 in their gas tank and pay ever-rising prices at the local Piggly Wiggly.

Obama and John McCain both have energy plans out there for all to see. But as the cliché goes, the devil is in the details. And when it comes to politicians, it’s what they do, not what they say, that is always the most telling. Speeches may dazzle, but voting records are far more telling.

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