Wonder what “favors” were exchanged to sell this stupid idea? I’ve wondered a long time.
Bush signed it, bought into it and embraced it. Why? How did he become convinced this could ever be a good idea? He was not alone. He had lots of help.
Who got paid off and how much?
Doing something this stupid could only have happened by greed and stupidity.
When will it get reversed? When will the gravy train end for the farm belt?
It may not be entirely relevant to the topic, but a few years back when talk about corn ethanol and alternative fuels from things like switchgrass was center stage, I did a back of the envelope calculation to find out how feasible these numbers were. The values are somewhat dated (two or three years) but here goes. If one were to convert the entire annual output of palm oil produced by both Indonesia and Malaysia to biofuel, it would satisfy the US domestic transportation industry for about 22 days or roughly three weeks. And they produce a LOT of palm oil, live in favorable tropical conditions, and grow the stuff like it’s going out of style. Given all that, the US temperate climate, and enormous demand for refined petroleum (gasoline), I see the “growing our way” out of the dependence on good old crude a pipe dream.