Question: Should we focus on speculation or the use of agriculture for energy?
Harry Reid: I think if we’re going to look at speculation, the first place we should look at the speculation taking place in oil. Most all academics say that the price of oil is way higher than it should be. Why? I think one of the reasons, and I agree with the experts, is if you want to go buy a share of stock in General Motors, you pay a 50% margin. If you want to buy 100,000 barrels of oil, you pay a 3% to 5% margin. That’s where the real speculation takes place. In food markets, we have better control of food in some areas. We have better control of a lot of the things we do with food than we do with energy. I have always been concerned about using food when there are lots of people hungry in the world to produce energy. But as a result of this experiment that we’ve conducted, it’s clear that we can produce better fuel and that causes us to import less oil from overseas by using products that agricultural in nature. We’ve learned as a result of this maybe we don’t need to use as much corn. Maybe we can use switch grass and other things that grow out there that aren’t for eating. That’s where we’re moving now. That’s what this new farm bill has. It gives great incentives for using other products than just food you eat to produce energy.
Discuss
tim hall on April 27, 2009, 11:10 AM
So we go from fossil fuel to burning weeds. How much smog will this produce if we use it to replace just 1/3 of our oil energy? You wouldn’t be able to see over 100 yards. We are not in a race to get off of oil. There isn’t any proof of terrorist money tied to foriegn oil. Our farm subsidies are all ready way to much and for no good reasoning what so ever. They are just using fear tactics to support their aggra buddies. Earl Butz has been dead for a while now. Thank God! Now we need to go after Dow Chemical and Purdue University and fine the crap out of them for all the government manipulation, poisoning our land and water, and lieing about a sustainable food source. Recently they claimed that they had fixed the Earl Butz farm subsidy program. You should read it. It is fixed allright. It is fixed for large co-ops only. They put a cluase in saying that a farmer could opt out of the program if it does not fit their needs. They are still stealing our tax dollars so we can have cheap food show up at the market. I want to know what my food cost, not hidden in my tax payment. Protect the farmers? What farmers? Butz ran the farmers out of business 40 years ago. All we have is corporate welfare. America needs to wake up and pay attention to who is stealing from them. We need to get the likes of the Harry Reids and Evan Byhes out of our government. They are thieves.
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