[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 84 (Wednesday, May 21, 2008)]
[House]
[Pages H4446-H4450]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             FOOD FOR FUEL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Altmire). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 18, 2007, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Burgess) is 
recognized from this moment until midnight.
  Mr. BURGESS. I thank the Speaker, and I thank the Members on the 
Democratic side for yielding back their time early.
  Mr. Speaker, I'm going to do something a little different tonight. 
Normally I come down here to the floor of the House to talk about 
health care. But we've heard a lot recently about where this country is 
in regards to its

[[Page H4447]]

energy policy. We've heard a lot recently about the high cost of food 
and foodstuffs, and whether or not that has been related to this 
country's energy policy.
  You can call it what you want. Call it Murphy's Law, Newton's Third 
Law, or just the plain old law of unintended consequences, but when a 
government as large as ours is, and I assure you, after being here for 
5 years, it is an extremely large Federal Government; but when a 
government as large as ours mandates the use of anything, there will be 
downstream effects, downrange effects that sometimes you can't predict 
and certainly are beyond your control.
  A case in point is the growing crisis of food versus fuel and the 
debate that rages in Congress.
  Now, the early part of this month, the 5th of May, I hosted an event 
billed as Food vs. Fuel: Understanding the Unintended Consequences of 
United States Policy. I invited representatives from the farming 
community, food companies, consumers, domestic charities and the press 
in an attempt to get a 360-degree view of this issue.
  Now, just for the record, I want to mention the names of the people 
who were kind enough to spend the morning with me earlier this month 
and whose opinions were represented at the round table. And it was a 
diversity of opinions. This was certainly not a one-sided debate.
  We had Jon Doggett from the National Corn Growers Association, their 
Vice President of Public Policy. We had Scott Faber of the Grocery 
Manufacturers Association, the Vice President for Federal affairs of 
that group; Bob Young of the American Farm Bureau, their chief 
economist. Bob Young is a Ph.D economist. Candy Hill of Catholic 
Charities, who is a Senior Vice President for Social Policy and 
Government Affairs, primarily working in the domestic realm. And last 
but not least, Bob Davis, a reporter for the Wall Street Journal who's 
reported on a number of international economic issues over the years. 
And it was really Mr. Davis' reports in the Wall Street Journal that 
prompted my interest in this subject.
  When we had assembled this panel of experts, I asked the experts, 
with the policy now of so much of our corn being turned into fuel, and 
with food shortages an inevitable result, are America's biofuel 
programs the cause or the effect?
  Now this is kind of ironic because we just voted again on the farm 
bill today. But here's a poster that shows perhaps some of the 
consequences or the unintended consequences of putting corn in the gas 
tank and ignoring other needs, other uses that that ear of corn might 
go to.
  Has Congress been fooled into a bad fuel policy at the expense of our 
national food supply?
  I went into this round table with an open mind. We had a panel that 
was really evenly distributed. Certainly there was no stacked deck 
against anyone or in favor of any one particular policy. And perhaps 
it's unique for a Member of Congress to not arrive at a conclusion 
until looking at the data.
  So this food versus fuel matchup, is, in my opinion, another example 
of the law of unintended or unforeseen consequences. And, of course, 
the symptoms are all around us. They're impossible to deny. You turn on 
the TV, you click on your Internet, you read about the ever escalating 
cost of food prices, both domestically and across the globe, and the 
news is frequently paired with stories of shortages, heart rending 
stories of shortages, and the resulting unrest that food shortages 
cause abroad.
  On April 14, the Wall Street Journal reported ``surging commodity 
prices have pushed global food prices 83 percent upward in the last 3 
years.''
  My hometown paper, the Fort Worth Star Telegram, the newspaper of the 
largest city in my district, on May 2 of this year, they had an opinion 
piece in the Star Telegram that discussed how the indirect cost of 
ethanol hurt Texans at the grocery store.

                              {time}  2330

  Mr. Speaker, just recently, according to the Bureau of Logic Or 
Statistics, between the beginning of March and the beginning of May 
when I held this hearing, a dozen eggs, the price was up 35 percent; a 
gallon of milk, the price was up 23 percent; a loaf of bread, the price 
was up 16 percent.
  Now, we still need to eat and so Americans are getting creative in 
which groceries they purchase, and they're using grocery store coupons 
in record rates. In 2007 alone, consumers redeemed 1.8 billion coupons, 
an increase of over 100 billion coupons from the previous year. Now 
overall, the Department of Agriculture estimates that food prices will 
jump 4 to 5 percent this year.
  Now, those price increases may seem modest, but for the poorest 
Americans who spend a greater portion of their family budgets on food, 
it is, in fact, becoming a tremendous burden.
  Cherries across the country are being challenged by the rising food 
prices. It's more expensive to buy food. Donations are going down, and 
more people are then turning to charities for assistance.
  So they've got a rising population that is coming in and asking for 
help, and their prices that they have to pay in order to provide that 
help is going up. And clearly those two are on unsustainable paths.
  Catholic Charities USA, one of the largest social networks in helping 
almost 8 million people a year, has seen a 60-percent increase in 
people seeking food and nutrition services across the country since 
2002. In 2006 alone, Catholic charities saw a 12-percent increase in 
the number of individuals seeking help in order to provide food for 
themselves and their families.
  Rising food prices are not merely a domestic issue. They have 
international implications as well.
  Let me share this poster, and this is from a recent Washington Post 
series called, The Global Food Crisis, which depicts the haves versus 
the have-nots in the industrial world versus developing countries. And 
this graphic reads, ``North America helps feed the world supplying 
about half of the growable grain exports. People in developing 
countries spend up to 80 percent of their money on food. So when food 
prices rise sharply, partially as a result of supply changes in North 
America and other producing countries, the world's poor feel it the 
most right in the gut.''
  The results of tighter supplies are reverberating literally across 
the globe, and they do have dire consequences. In Haiti, the capital 
city of Port-au-Prince, rioters have taken to the streets to protest 
higher food prices. The violence has gotten so significant that in fact 
it resulted in a governmental change in that country. Similar unrest 
has erupted in Egypt, Cameroon, the Ivory Coast, Senegal, and Ethiopia.
  May 5 was prior to the devastating events, the cyclone in Burma and 
the earthquake in China. I submit that all of these problems that were 
of significant proportion on May 5 of this year have now gotten that 
much larger because of the results of those twin catastrophes, and 
we're only just now about to enter into hurricane season in this 
country.
  Robert Zoellick, the president of the World Bank, estimates that 33 
countries are in danger of experiencing similar unrest as a result of 
food prices and food shortages. While food shortages hurt people the 
most, they also harm American policy. One of our greatest diplomatic 
strengths is through foreign aid. Last week, President Bush requested 
an additional $770 million in emergency food assistance for poor 
countries responding to rising food prices that have caused social 
unrest in several nations.
  So what is the conventional wisdom on higher grocery bills here at 
home and lower food stores at an international level?
  In my previous life of as a physician, I was given to making 
diagnoses. My diagnosis in this situation, as a result of many experts 
saying that the United States' biofuel policy is to blame for increase 
in food prices and a decrease in food supplies; the argument then is 
that Federal mandates to produce more biofuels have, number one, 
diverted more crops from food to fuel, and two, increased the demand 
for crop building blocks like fertilizer, water, and transportation. 
And those inputs have increased the cost of biofuel costs like corn and 
soybeans and other nonbiofuel crops like rice and wheat as well.
  The International Food Policy Research Institute suggests that 
biofuel production accounts for a quarter to a

[[Page H4448]]

third of the recent increases in global commodity prices. Within the 
United Nations, the Food and Agricultural Organization has predicted 
that biofuel production, assuming current mandates continue, will 
increase food costs by 10 to 15 percent. That's an important point: 
assuming current mandates continue an additional 10 to 15 percent, in 
addition to the 5 percent rise that we've already seen this year.
  Well, let's talk a minute because there is some confusion on what is 
a biofuel.
  If you Google ``biofuel'' on the Internet, you will find out the 
following: A biofuel is defined as a solid, liquid, or gas fuel 
containing or consisting of or derived from recently dead biological 
material, most commonly plants. This distinguishes it from fossil fuel 
which is derived from biological material that has long been dead--been 
dead a long time. And what are the building blocks of biofuel? 
Commodities like corn, soybeans, sugarcanes, vegetable oil that can be 
used either as food or to make biofuels.
  And probably the best or most well-known biofuel is, of course, 
ethanol. In the United States, the primary source of ethanol is from 
corn currently, 95 percent. Ethanol is a type of alcohol made by 
fermenting and distilling simple sugars. It's the same compound that's 
found in our alcoholic beverages, and its primary use in the United 
States, as a fuel, is as an additive to gasoline.
  Now, the ethanol policy in this country goes back to the Arab oil 
embargoes of 1973 and 1979. Since that time, the production of fuel 
ethanol has been encouraged through the Federal tax incentives of 
ethanol-blended gasoline.
  In 2005 when the Republicans were in control of Congress, the Energy 
Policy Act established a renewable fuel standard which mandated the use 
of ethanol. 7.5 billion gallons of renewable fuel must be blended with 
the Nation's gasoline by 2012.
  But then last year right at the end of the year, Congress passed the 
Energy Independence and Security Act which increased this renewable 
fuel standard to require 36 billion gallons of biofuel additives for 
transportation fuels by 2022.
  Now, according to the United States Department of Agriculture, 3.2 
billion bushels of corn will be used to produce roughly 6 billion 
gallons of fuel ethanol during the current corn marketing year, 
September 2007 through the end of August of 2008.
  Well, let's talk a little bit about corn because it is important.
  This poster tells a little bit about two different types of corn: 
field corn and sweet corn. Field corn is the most--is what is mostly 
grown in America. It's primarily used to feed livestock and to produce 
ethanol. So field corn is used for fuel, and sweet corn is used for 
human consumption.
  This graphic also explains to some degree how the field corn is used. 
The pie chart there at the bottom shows a little less than half, about 
47 percent of field corn, the type of corn used to produce ethanol, was 
used for animal feed; about a quarter, 24 percent, was used for 
ethanol; 19 percent was exported, and 10 percent was used for direct 
human consumption in various forms.
  Now, those who believe biofuels are to blame for rising food prices 
argue that its fundamentally wrong to divert food meant for tables into 
gas tanks when there are those going hungry both here at home and 
abroad. Additionally, they argue that ethanol production is fighting 
off a potential environmental crisis and a potential dependence on 
foreign oil, but we face an actual crisis in food production in the 
United States.
  Ethanol opponents also point to significant scientific research 
regarding the environmental impacts of ethanol production. And what are 
they? It's important to look at those environmental impacts.
  Scientific research shows that the use of crop lands for biofuels 
actually increases greenhouse gasses through emissions from land-use 
change. Work by Tim Searchinger of the Georgetown Environmental Law and 
Policy Institute, which recently appeared in Science magazine, argues 
that the land-use change from forest to grassland to new cropland 
nearly doubles greenhouse grass emissions over 30 years and increases 
those greenhouse gasses for over 150 years.
  The important innovation in this research is that prior studies would 
show a 20-percent savings in emissions neglect the impact of land-use 
change, and clearly the doctor's work shows that that is significant.
  Now, as farmers respond to the rising demand for corn, they create 
new cropland, and they create that what? Out of grassland and forest. 
Plowing up more forest or grassland releases more of the carbon dioxide 
previously stored or more of carbon previously stored in plants and 
soils through decomposition and that which is burned when fields are 
cleared by burning.
  Also, the loss of forests and grasslands prevents the plants from 
performing their own form of carbon sequestration in the stocks and 
leaves and roots of the plant.
  Significant critiques have risen from this research. For example, 
Searchinger's work supposes that there's a constant yield per acre of 
corn, but if an acre of corn yield has increased over 300 percent since 
1944, then new technologies have contributed to a 30 percent increase 
in the last decade. Research conducted by the National Academy of 
Sciences shows the biofuel mandates are contributing to air pollution, 
water pollution, and they do compound water shortages.
  Now, on the other side, and we heard from the other side during this 
hearing, those who support the use of corn for ethanol. In terms of 
economic security, ethanol supporters argue that the production of 
biofuels goes a long way in helping end our dependence on foreign oil. 
We can grow our own fuel here at home thus supporting our domestic 
economy. At the same time, we don't have to rely on rogue regimes in 
unstable parts of the world for the vast majority of our fuel needs 
which enhances our national security.
  The rising prices of food aren't caused by biofuel mandates, per se. 
Growing demand in global markets, especially China and India, drive up 
the price. Additionally, they point out that shortages caused by bad 
weather in places like Australia, and in fact they point out that--
people who support the use of biofuels point out that climate change 
may be to blame since certain areas of the world where grain was once 
grown no longer have the weather to support those types of crops.
  Another issue that is often brought up is meat consumption in China 
has risen from 25 kilograms per person in 1995 to over 50 kilograms per 
person in 2007. On average, it takes 5 kilograms of grain to produce 1 
kilogram of meat, while the demand for meat has grown 28 kilograms per 
person. The resulting demand for grain has increased by 7.8 billion 
bushels.
  So with these two conflicting and opposing viewpoints, what do you 
think? Is it biofuels that are causing the high grocery prices, or is 
it just a result of natural forces within the world? And if the issue 
is that increased biofuels production is contributing to the high cost 
of food, what would be the answer? What would be the prescription for 
curing that ailment?
  So certainly we're going to continue to provide hunger relief both 
here and at home. But we could look at freezing the renewable fuel 
standards and rolling back some biofuel mandates, certainly providing 
increased incentives to make breakthroughs on cellulosic ethanol so we 
won't be using our food to fuel our cars.
  And that may be what is at the central part of this argument. As well 
intentioned as the policy was in 2005 when the Republican House of 
Representatives dictated renewable fuel standard, and as forward-
thinking as it was in December of this past year when the Democratic 
House increased that renewable fuel standard, it all depended upon the 
advancement in technology.

                              {time}  2345

  We can't continue to turn this much foodstuff into fuel for our 
automobiles and trucks. We depend upon this policy, depend upon the 
advancement, the breakdown of the cellulose in the plant wall to make 
ethanol and not distilling of ethanol from the starch and sugars that 
are contained in the grain component.
  Until we achieve that breakthrough of cellulosic ethanol, and I 
believe it will occur one day, but until that time occurs, it is almost 
not reasonable to

[[Page H4449]]

assume that we will be able to meet the country's growing 
transportation fuel demands through production of ethanol, certainly by 
diverting our foodstuff into that product.
  Another thing that we could do, and this was a point that was so 
eloquently stated by Mr. Davis in the Wall Street Journal, we can 
change the way the United States handles its delivery of foreign aid, 
the commodity versus cash approach. The current approach is to buy 
excess United States production of grain and then deliver that product 
to the country where the crisis exists, but if we were to shift that 
approach and begin supporting local agriculture in developing Nations, 
it could break the cycle of dependence on foreign aid and break the 
cycle of hunger and famine.
  I don't think there's any question at this point that we have to be 
looking at other sources. Now, we had a pretty interesting debate on 
the floor of this House this past week, and we heard the Democrats talk 
about that in their last hour. This was the debate about the temporary 
stoppage of filling what's known as the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. 
Now it's a small amount that would actually be put back in to increase 
supply in this country, but for the first time, for the first time, 
there appeared to be genuine, bilateral, bipartisan agreement that 
increasing supply was a way to positively affect fuel prices here in 
this country.
  Every other debate that we've had, certainly since I've been in 
Congress, when it comes down to an issue of increasing supply, 
generally 90 percent of the people on my side of the aisle are in favor 
of it, and 90 percent of the people on the other side of the aisle are 
opposed. ANWR is perhaps the poster child for this, and we heard a 
great deal about that in the hour previous to the last hour when Mr. 
Peterson from Pennsylvania talked about where we would be today had 
then-President Clinton not vetoed the provision that would have allowed 
drilling in ANWR in 1996, some 12 years ago.
  We're told it would take 7 to 8 to 10 years to actually deliver 
finished product out of ANWR into the marketplace in this country. 
Well, guess what, if we had started that in 1996, we'd be using that 
oil today, and we wouldn't be feeling the repercussions in the price at 
the pump that we see today. There wouldn't be the pressure on diverting 
food into fuel if only we'd paid attention to supply.
  But maybe that day is at hand. Again, we had broad bilateral 
commitment, broad bipartisan commitment, both sides of the aisle in 
this House that said temporarily we're going to stop filling the 
Strategic Petroleum Reserve because, my opinion at least, there was 
broad bipartisan agreement that increasing supply even just a little 
bit would be a positive effect on prices at the pump.
  So how much more good could we do if we moved off that minuscule 
amount and looked at some of the other ways to increase the supply? Now 
there's not a person in this Congress, I don't think, that feels that 
someday we're going to get a lot of our fuels from different sources 
than we see today, but right now, it's coal, it's natural gas, it's 
oil. That's what's available to drive our economy, and sure, we may 
want to pivot to a day where that energy production comes from 
somewhere else, but until we get there--and we are not there yet on 
cellulosic ethanol by a long shot, and if we turn all this stuff into 
ethanol for our cars, we have unintended consequences and unintended 
repercussions downrange and downstream that are quite severe.
  So this Congress really needs to take a serious look at ways that we 
can increase supply because, again, apparently all agree that 
increasing supply is going to be a good thing as far as its effect on 
fuel prices in this country.
  So maybe ANWR's too emotional. Maybe we can't do it. Maybe we just 
have to leave that one in the too-hard box for a little while, and I 
would say, okay, but bring us your ideas from the other side of the 
aisle. Let's not make it all about turning this stuff into something we 
can put in our automobiles. Let's make it about how do we deliver more 
usable energy for the American people, how do we maintain the American 
economy.
  Is it going to be nuclear? We can talk about that. I'd love it if we 
talked about that. Is it going to be drilling on the Outer Continental 
Shelf as Mr. Peterson outlined or in the Intermountain West, to the oil 
shales in Canada? The fact is, we've got reliable supplies of energy 
here at home, but we've put an embargo on American energy and that, 
quite frankly, just simply does not make any sense.
  But it was a new day here in Congress this week when both sides, in a 
bipartisan fashion, said, by golly, increasing supply is going to be a 
good thing for the American energy consumer, and we're going to do 
that. And we only did a little bit by temporarily stopping filling the 
Strategic Petroleum Reserve, but maybe that new day has dawned and 
we're now going to have a meaningful discussion on where the common 
ground is, where we can meet in the middle and work on increasing that 
supply for the American people.
  Because, quite honestly, until we get to the day of the promise of 
cellulosic ethanol, this is not going to be a formula for success, and 
in fact, unintended consequences of this behavior may have absolutely 
devastating and dire consequences around the world.
  You know, the law of unintended consequences used to be that it took 
almost a generation for those unintended consequences to come home and 
to come back around and work their effect. But we're in a time now 
where the effect of unintended consequences can be felt very, very 
quickly.
  We heard in the last hour the discussion about the reauthorization of 
higher education and student loans. Well, remember, we did something to 
student loans in September of last year. Then we had to turn around and 
undo it in April or May of this year because of the unintended 
consequences and the fact that we were driving up interest rates at the 
same time that availability of credit was coming down. And we were 
worried that no student loans were going to be available when this 
summer's crop of students went to apply for those loans in June, July 
and August.
  Unintended consequences have a way of coming around extremely 
quickly, and the unintended consequences of increasing the renewable 
fuel standard that this Congress undertook in December of 2007 has very 
quickly come home and the repercussions and reverberations are being 
felt around the world, and it's leading to instability in governments 
in this hemisphere.
  Is that something we want? We always talk about the world that we 
want to leave for our children. Is that the type of world we want to 
leave for our children where worldwide hunger and worldwide deprivation 
lead to instability in developing countries? I don't think so.
  I think it is time that this Congress needs to take action. After 
all, part of this crisis is of our doing. We should understand, this 
Congress should understand, the leadership of this Congress should 
understand about unintended consequences.
  Now a lot of people who serve in this House are politicians, and 
that's not a great surprise. And politicians have the urge to respond 
to public opinion and try to mold their policies to reflect public 
opinion. But we need to be careful when we respond like that. As 
policymakers, we have an obligation to enact, well, responsible policy. 
That's what we're sent here to do. We're sent here to find sensible 
solutions.
  Now Congress can't control foreign demand. Congress, I don't think, 
can control the weather. There may be some in this body who feel that 
they can, but we can address the effect of unintended consequences of 
our biofuel policy which diverts a quarter of our national corn supply 
to ethanol production, a quarter, a quarter of our annual national corn 
supply to ethanol.
  Congress and our President have nothing but good intentions--we care 
so deeply about people--nothing but good intentions in promoting the 
expansion of renewable fuels, but ethanol is not the energy security 
silver bullet that many people believe it to be.
  Last year, we burned 24 percent of our national corn supply as fuel, 
and we reduced our oil consumption by almost 1 percent. Unintended 
consequences are almost always unenvisioned consequences as well. If 
you lack the vision to look over the horizon and see what's coming 
next, unintended consequences are likely right around the corner.
  Obviously it was not the intent to cause distress both at home and

[[Page H4450]]

abroad, but good intentions are not sufficient cause for Congress to 
plant its head in the sand and ignore what is becoming increasingly 
obvious.
  Our renewable standard is creating problems with food prices here at 
home and food shortages abroad. It's leading to destabilization of 
world governments because of the effect of hunger and deprivation in 
developing countries. It is time for this Congress to get it right. 
It's time for this Congress to reexamine those renewable fuel 
standards, back off for a while until the price situation stabilizes in 
the world market. And we have to get serious about increasing energy 
supply to run this economy, to run what Ronald Reagan described as the 
last best hope on Earth for democracy.

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