In the past I have been chided for some of my blogs being “divisive” or “too political”. Well hold on to your hats folks because today I am just flat
pissed off!!!!

I will start with an NPR report I heard earlier this week. The report referenced the state of Texas requesting a waiver from the federal government on the requirement to use ethanol in their fuel. For some reason the folks at NPR neglected to point out that this request by Gov. Perry’s office came after one of the largest poultry operations in country, Pilgrim’s Pride, made a $100,000.00 investment ... oops, sorry... donation to the Republican Governors Association. Did I mention Perry chairs that little group? This was all reported in the Houston Chronicle. Not some blogger or little known tabloid the Houston Chronicle.

To make things even more interesting, the folks at NPR neglected to point out that the waiver the Perry administration requested was put together not just by the good hard-working government employees of Texas, but by a group of Pilgrim’s Pride lobbyists and public relations people from the firm Public Strategies.

NPR did mention the Grocery Manufacturers Association joining with the fine folks of Texas in protesting the ethanol mandate. Of course the USDA and others have already discredited the GMA claims that all the cost increase of food has been caused by ethanol.

I am not really surprised when reporters get stuff wrong. They are reporters, not scientists or policy makers or even practitioners of the black
arts (you know: economists). They report what they see. I would request that if a simple blogger like myself can find this information that it is not all
that tough for them to get it right.

Aside from the failure of NPR to actually get even the facts of the Texas ethanol waiver story correct, I would not expect them to do much better
with the food-versus-food thing in general. Here at BidForGreen we have tackled this subject several times, and it looks like we have to do it
again. Ethanol is NOT causing food prices to skyrocket, and people are not starving to death because of ethanol. Ethanol, from corn, is not the perfect answer to our energy needs. It is however, a step we need to take.