Started in December of 2006, the Interamerican Ethanol Commission is the new project of President George W. Bush’s brother, ex-Governor of Florida Jeb Bush. As reported in this Miami Herald article, “Jeb Bush Part of Global Trio Touting Ethanol,” the group had a conference a couple of weeks ago touting the benefits of a hemispheric ethanol initiative which will make Latin America and the Caribbean the “Persian Gulf of Biofuels” - I kid you not.
The other members of the commission are Luis Alberto Moreno, a member of the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) and Roberto Rodrigues, former agriculture minister of Brazil.
As far as I can tell the IADB supports the commission’s activities. And given that most of the quotes on the website (www.helpfuelthefuture.org) are Gov. Bush’s, I strongly infer that this is his pet project to maybe get elected again sometime in the future.
The Commission’s line is that biofuel is a good in itself and that a hemispheric plan should be implemented and sponsored by the governments of the region. Peru, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Colombia - every country has a strength in biofuels that can be used to make the dream possible.
As for Fidel’s comment (see here for Fidel’s comments and here for a better article on the general topic) that ethanol is likely to hurt the poor, Jeb Bush says that this is why the US should eliminate its tariff on sugar-cane ethanol from Brazil.
As for the environmetal damage caused by increased soybean and sugarcane acreage in Brazil (see here for another viewpoint), Mr. Rodrigues says that Brazil currently uses only 7.4 million acres for growing sugar-cane out of the potential 54 million acres of potential sugar-cane-ready pastures. Additionally, using modern agriculture techniques, Brazil can grow its ethanol output 16 times without sacrificing Amazon jungle. Given that this is the lobbying group for ethanol, it is wise to take this figures with a large handful of salt.
In any case, here it is folks, Jeb Bush’s Interamerican Ethanol Commission - the latest incarnation of the once oil-loving Bush family.
Many of the key issues in the ethanol debate are all about what we “should” and “shouldn’t” do. We should get rid of tariffs against sugar-cane ethanol from Brazil, because they’re anti-competitive. We shouldn’t get rid of those tariffs because it will lead to more destruction of the Amazon. We should support the Mexican government’s corn subsidies, because otherwise the ethanol market would drive tortilla prices too high.
In the free market, should we be making economic decisions based on “should”s? I don’t think so. The goal should be an efficient way of identifying, valuing, and then internalizing external costs through taxes. Using markets to propagate policy goals does not seem like a good solution, and historically has been ineffective.