While President Bush and Company sat on their duff for nearly eight years and never authorized "Alternate Fuel R&D" plan and to this day, NO Alternate Fuel Plan.

Now that gasoline at the pumps have hit $4.00 a gallon plus, we hear Senator McCain, President Bush and Company calling for drilling not only off-shore but everywhere else????

However, we did hear Senator Barack Obama state that he is for immediate R&D for Alternate Fuel. Senator Obama is also calling for a collective discussion with the Big Three Auto Manufactures in Detroit, MI as soon as he is sworn in as President of the United States of America.

This has not come from the mouth of Senator John McCain to date. McCain is calling for the gas tax to be lifted until the Labor Day Holiday is over which Senator Obama has called a gimmick which also includes T. Boone Pickens thoughts on behalf of McCain's energy plans which are in question.

This Johnny Come Lately approach in drilling by McCain and Bush would only benefit consumers ten to twenty years down the road. We have to do better than that if the United States is going to survive.

As the Legendary oilman T. Boone Pickens recently stated, the U.S. currently pays out $700 billion annually for imported oil, and that will increase to $10 trillion within 10 years if the pattern continues!

"It's the biggest transfer of wealth in the history of mankind. If you don't think that's not going to bring you to your knees, your kidding yourself. It's going to bring us down if we don't watch out"

Wobbling is not the answer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Obama is supporting corn-based ethanol, and the subsidies to the corn producers and big enthanol distillers. Corn-based ethanol is one of the biggest boondoggles ever conceived, and has completely screwed up the world corn commodity market at a time when the world food supply is in serious trouble. The only ones benefiting from corn-based ethanol are big agro-industry companies like ADM and Monsanto, and a bunch of corn farmers. If he wants to flip flop on an position, this is the one he should choose.

According to his webpage, he is advocating cellulosic ethanol production, which can be done from corn, but uses the stalk and husk and thus had no impact on the corn food supply. <link>

Previously he has supported ethanol alternative fuel legislation, but I don't know how specific the bills were about source or production. I do think there were corn mandates, but I don't know about type of ethanol production.

Cellulosic ethanol production is fine, but there are many more sources for the raw material than corn husks, from switch grass, to solid waste, to lumber byproducts. The point is, there is very little actual ramp up, if any, by the enthanol producers in the U.S. to cellulosic production. In the meantime, corn ethanol producers and corn farmers are getting huge subsidies because the Bush administration made the ill-advised decision to go to corn-based ethanol. Obama needs to make it clear that he does not support this policy or the subsidies that go with it. At this point he is in support of these subsidies, and that constitutes bad policy.

But McCain is for dropping the tarriff for sugar based ethanol from Brazil which is cheaper & more effcient that corn ethanol. With food prices also skyrocketing, not only is sugar a better alternative than corn, it would not do further harm to to the world's food supply. O'Bama is pushing the corn ethanol for political expediency. It will get votes for him by corn producing states.

I don't think corn subsidies are the end-all answer either, but equating a local-interest (he is an Illinois senator) decision by Obama (even a wrong one) is incomparable to the BS that McCain is flying on with offshore drilling and his essential non-plan for Energy.

completely screwed up the world corn commodity market at a time when the world food supply is in serious trouble.

Ethanol is wrong because it's not the most efficient - refining and transporting make it basically null - but you should be able to see why Obama supports it in Illinois (it helps buttress agro-business and raises market prices). Ethanol is not wrong because it will mess up global food markets. Mess up? You mean drive the price of one of the last vestiges of material American production up? I'll take a smaller bucket of popcorn at the movies if I know at least one product is still being produced and exported from the US...

but corn is short term - Brazilian sugar will outlive it as a solution, until it too is supplanted by a better idea.

KH: Ethanol from corn is a clusterfuck by any measure. It's certainly not efficient (almost 1:1 for energy expended to produce), and the skyrocketing commodity price for the few that it benefits doesn't come close to the hardship it brings to so many other sectors that use corn. Such as the beef and dairy industries who are going broke trying to use corn for feed and not pass on their own price increases to the consumers too quickly. Also, corn is used at almost all levels in the processed food industry adding greater inflation to the shelf price of about half of everything you buy at the supermarket. And then there's the little issue of third world countries buying corn for basic food for their populations, and the global aid agencies that have to buy corn (and wheat). They have had to cut back over 20 percent on the amount of grains simply because there current funding remains static. So for the handful of big agro-industries (ADM, Monsanto, etc.) and corn farmers in the Midwest who are making lots of money off commodity driven corn, the rest of our country and the world is suffering. These"last vestiages" of American production constitute a very small contingent of those who are profiting. Your logic is very flawed. Better enjoy your popcorn while you can, but actually you should choke on it for your rather selfish and cynical posture, not to mention just being blithly ignorant of the total effect of corn-based ethanol.

Brazil is another matter all together. Yes, sugar cane is much more efficient than corn for ethanol (about 8:1). Additionally, Brazil is the world's largest producer and exporter of soybeans, so they could also product bio-diesel for that matter. The really insidious thing about their sugar cane and soy crops is that they are cutting back huge amounts of the Amazon rain forest for crop production. The Amazon rain forest represents the world's largest O2 sink (produces O2) which counters CO2 production. They are cutting down one of the most valuable resources in the world to produce ethanol which when burned produces CO2, which the rain forest offsets. Now that's real long-sighted, you think! Right up there with corn ethanol, I would say.

BTW: Obama's support of corn subsidies pales in comparsion to the sheer stupidity of McCain's support of drilling in ANWAR. Opening up this area will not solve anything either in the long term or short term, and will not cause any immeadiate effect on the price of oil, because it is being driven by pure speculation at this point. This is political posturing at it's worst. I actually think the corn ethanol thing will blow over sooner than later, no matter who supported it, Bush or Obama. Obama supports it because he is from Illinois, Bush just because he's plain ignorant.

Well, I actually do agree with you, Bordhead, on the problems with Ethanol.....I just rather ineffectively tried to justify (locally, at least) why Obama made the mistake of supporting the subsidies that have propped up ethanol. My specious argument for "corn is one of the few things fighting our escalating trade deficit" was more about me being fed up with our own national problem of not actually producing anything. The majority of our economy is locked up in "financial products" - i.e. when all of these little commodities like agriculture make up a "very small contingent" of our export potential, I'm just pissed that nobody else can see that we've got a phantom economy. There are plenty of textiles and tech factories/companies out there, but we've let slip our advantage and there will be one put up in no time anywhere in the Eastern Hemisphere.

so, my bad...

bordhead:

the sheer stupidity of McCain's support of drilling in ANWAR

Of course I could be mistaken, but I don't believe McCain has changed his longstanding opposition to drilling in ANWR. He has flip-flopped only on the subject of offshore drilling.

Bush, on the other hand, has long supported drilling in ANWR and when he made his idiotic call the other day to lift the moratorium on offshore drilling, he coupled that with a renewed call for drilling in ANWR.

Both are wrong. Both would have a negligible effect on consumers while further lining the pockets of big oil. But I think you've pegged McCain with one idiotic policy he doesn't actually support.

There is no need to flip flop on this issue because we are in denial. People seem to believe that natural gas and oil will last forever. Drilling around the United States and ethenol are short term goals. We need to start looking else where to find an energy source that will be environmentally friendly as well as cheaper for the average consumer.

RonB: I stand corrected about McCain and ANWAR. He's still against drilling there, as of this point in his campaign anyway. Guess we'll just have to wait and see how things go in the campaign and how desperate he gets for raising his poll numbers.