The Pink Flamingo :: Obama, Tom Daschle & the Ethanol Lobby

It is a good thing Barack Obama is not in bed, snuggling up to lobbyists, or he could be accused of selling out to the corn/ethanol lobby for votes in the mid-west. Evidently Obama used his ties to the ethanol lobby as a spring-board to the mid-western corn states and his POTUS run. He and Tom Daschle, now a lobbyist for the corn-ethanol industry travel together quite a bit in the mid-west. (Daschle says he is not a lobbyist for the industry, but speaks out for them on occasion). According to the NYTimes, Daschle isn’t the only one Obama “hangs” with.

“…Nowadays, when Mr. Obama travels in farm country, he is sometimes accompanied by his friend Tom Daschle, the former Senate majority leader from South Dakota. Mr. Daschle now serves on the boards of three ethanol companies and works at a Washington law firm where, according to his online job description, “he spends a substantial amount of time providing strategic and policy advice to clients in renewable energy.”

Mr. Obama’s lead advisor on energy and environmental issues, Jason Grumet, came to the campaign from the National Commission on Energy Policy, a bipartisan initiative associated with Mr. Daschle and Bob Dole, the Kansas Republican who is also a former Senate majority leader and a big ethanol backer who had close ties to the agribusiness giant Archer Daniels Midland.

Not long after arriving in the Senate, Mr. Obama himself briefly provoked a controversy by flying at subsidized rates on corporate airplanes, including twice on jets owned by Archer Daniels Midland, which is the nation’s largest ethanol producer and is based in his home state….”

Obama has been ‘in bed’ so to speak with the corn-ethanol lobby for several years.

“…..he freshman Democrat says higher ethanol production targets should be broken out of the bill, which has repeatedly stalled over disputes about drilling and liability for water supplies contaminated by the gasoline additive MTBE. Obama said he also supports related technologies. "I'm a big supporter of biodiesel," Obama said in a Monday afternoon interview. He said investing in biodiesel will, in the long term, help make the economy stronger. Obama said government support has often helped new establish new technologies. He cited the railroad and Internet. "It's not until the government has given it a shot in the arm that they really take off," he said. Boosting ethanol production has broad, bipartisan congressional support, but has been "held hostage" by other concerns in the energy bill, Obama said. "Now is the opportunity to get this done -- not only for the future of our farmers, the future of our economy and the future of our environment, but to make our country a place that is independent and innovative enough to control its own energy future," Obama said….”

SUBSIDIES
It’s all about subsidies, pay-outs, and propping up an industry. According to the NYTimes (no GOP friend)

“…Mr. McCain advocates eliminating the multibillion-dollar annual government subsidies that domestic ethanol has long enjoyed. As a free trade advocate, he also opposes the 54-cent-a-gallon tariff that the United States slaps on imports of ethanol made from sugar cane, which packs more of an energy punch than corn-based ethanol and is cheaper to produce….Mr. Obama, in contrast, favors the subsidies, some of which end up in the hands of the same oil companies he says should be subjected to a windfall profits tax. In the name of helping the United States build “energy independence,” he also supports the tariff, which some economists say may well be illegal under the World Trade Organization’s rules…Many economists, consumer advocates, environmental experts and tax groups have been critical of corn ethanol programs as a boondoggle that benefits agribusiness conglomerates more than small farmers. Those complaints have intensified recently as corn prices have risen sharply in tandem with oil prices and corn normally used for food stock has been diverted to ethanol production….”

Protein Wisdom brings up another interesting aspect of this story. Tom Daschle is in VP sweeps. Then there is the possibility that Obama’s ties to the ethanol lobby helped pull off the Iowa win during the primaries.

“…Obama has benefited from his close ties to the ethanol industry, as it helped him win the Iowa caucus and propelled him to the nomination, but his ties are one that run counter to the needs of the nation. Combined with the current round of flooding in the Midwest, corn prices continue to rise, which means that the farmers and those who process the corn into ethanol are standing to benefit from those higher prices. Of course, all those higher prices have to get passed on to the ultimate users - the consumers of food products and gasoline formulated with ethanol. Obama thinks that Americans can tolerate those higher gas prices, but as we're seeing, Americans are starting to change their spending habits as the prices push past $4. Americans might be better capable of adjusting to such changes, but that doesn't mean that it is a good idea for those prices to stay there, nor is it a good idea for Obama to continue proposing windfall profits taxes on the oil companies….”

What is Obama’s relationship to the Iowa based VeraSun?

“…In other VeraSun news, the company announced the acquisition with ASAlliances Biofuels, LLC for three ethanol plants with a combined annual production capacity of approximately 330 million gallons per year. The three facilities are each expected to operate at 110MMGY and are located in Linden, Indiana; Albion, Nebraska; and Bloomingburg, Ohio - only the Linden facility is currently open. This brings VeraSun’s total production capacity to 450 million gallons per year with four facilities in operation and another 550 million gallons of capacity under construction at five different sites. In addition to the Linden facility, VeraSun has operating plants in Aurora, South Dakota and Fort Dodge and Charles City, Iowa. Construction is also underway at Hartley, Iowa; Welcome, Minnesota; and Reynolds, Indiana…”

What fascinates me is this is fine – the lobby interests are okay because they are the lobby interests of the Obamassiah.

How deep is Barack Obama into the pockets of the Ethanol industry? It is obvious he has been involved with the industry for several years, perhaps pre-dating his Senate years. Did he use his ties to ethanol, big business, and the corn lobby and all it entails to help as he began his POTUS run in Iowa? He is also closely tied to price supports of corn. That helps him with the agriculture industry in general.

Then there is the fascinating possibility that Obama was able to manipulate his ties to the ethanol industry into his caucus organization in Iowa. If so, Hillary Clinton never stood a chance.

There are so many ethical questions about the idea of promoting bio-fuels over crop production to feed a hungry world. Where are the ethics? Are there moral considerations that have yet to be addressed in an age where people are basically starving. The use of corn in bio-fuels has had the effect of raising the price of corn for tortillas in Mexico. Has this contributed to illegal immigration?

Barack Obama has claimed purity when it comes to big business and lobbyists. The ethanol proposition completely proves him to be an abject hypocrite. There’s one other little factor. Did the purposeful backing of the ethanol agri-business in such states as Iowa come before he planned to run for POTUS or after? Is this just another example of his abject and unchecked ambition?

Does the man have a moral compass? The WSJ tells us that Obama has endorsed a more conservative white, male candidate in Georgia over a more liberal African-American female. Even though African-American voters are standing by in over-whelming numbers, it is rather obvious he will stab the distaff candidates in the back at a moment’s notice. Is it a political thing, or does he have something against women? Considering the way Hillary Clinton was treated and the lack of women on his campaign staff, I think it is a subject that needs to be explored.

James Lewis has an American Thinker column today that is one of those pieces I wish I’d written. It is about Obama’s lack of “normal” modesty.

“…he has a sizable chunk of personal narcissism as well. It is visible in his physical stance when he accepts the plaudits of the masses. You and I might be embarrassed by that kind of adulation. Obama bathes in it as a well-deserved tribute. His grand narcissism appears whenever he changes his mind on life-and-death questions like Iranian nukes. One day Iran is a "tiny country" (it's not) and the next day Obama claims to have a fully thought-out policy to solve the knottiest foreign policy dilemma since Jimmy Carter blundered us into it. Yes, well, maybe the mullahs could turn out be a problem after all, says Obama.

Who knows what he really believes? Well, we know what his Imperial Guard believes, and they are downright appeasers to the last man and woman. Obama has the most hard-core Leftist group of advisors, ready to take power by January 2009 and steeer the ship of state straight on the rocks.

Now Obama is a very bright man, but he way overestimates his own capacities. There are limits to human intelligence….He is simply Hollywood come to earth. Psychologically, Obama is ET, the Extra-Terrestrial -- he is from another place, a place in the otherworldly imagination of the Left.

Obama's narcissism combined with his fundamental ignorance spells danger for the country. If he does become president -- which looks like at least a 50-50 proposition right now -- he will be the most dangerous occupant in that office ever. He doesn't know where the steering wheel and the brakes are located; but he knows where he wants to go in his fertile imagination. A more dangerous driver of the American ship of state is hard to imagine….”

The worst part is you can take, full circle, the point I am making with this article. We are dealing with a very terrifying individual in the fact that his narcissistic arrogance could seriously endanger the US. In many ways he is a character straight out of a Tom Clancy novel. How long has he been planning to run for POTUS? Is it possible he has, indeed, been planning this since grade school?

If so, then the ties to agri-business, especially in Iowa are indeed abjectly fascinating. We must accept the possibility that they are manipulated to put him in the best possible position for the Iowa caucuses. He is now being squired about the Mid-West by Tom Daschle, who is on the VP list.

I am so glad this man has no ties to lobbyists. Heaven help us all if he did!