Bush thinks ethanol is increasing price of corn

Although some have argued, even recently, that the drive to convert large amounts of farming acreage to ethanol production has had no effect on the prices people pay for food, that is not the memo our prez has received. I guess someone in Washington noticed the price of corn has shot up 250 percent in the past two years. Not content to let the market work it out for itself, Bush spake to the masses gathered before him at the Washington International Renewable Energy Conference (WIRC), "And so we got to do something about it." My, but he is a man of words, isn't he.
And what is this "something" the Decider has decided we should do? Make more ethanol, of course. But now, we should make it out of wood chips and agricultural waste. Apparently, we still have lots of trees we don't need and our agricultural waste isn't currently being used for anything besides soil enrichment. According to this article in the New York Times, Bush informed the crowd that the effort is well under way and that the Energy Department had already spent over $1 billion kick starting a "cellulosic ethanol" industry.

Speaking of nuts, the president also let it be known that he had been impressed with the recent flight Virgin Atlantic made from London to Amsterdam on fuel derived from the babassu nut. Though Bush said he had never seen the nut in person, he was amazed it could help power a plane the size of a 747. I guess if the plane had been smaller he would have been less impressed.

[Source: New York Times]