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Ag Secretary Defends Ethanol
By Mr Ethanol | October 22, 2008
istockAnalyst.com:
Ed Schafer was sworn in as the 29th Secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture in January 2008. A two-term governor of North Dakota, Schafer chaired the Republican Governors Association and co-founded the Governors Biotechnology Partnership to increase public understanding and support for the benefits of agricultural biotechnology.
Hard Assets Investor Editor Brad Zigler (HAI): How do you see biomass and biofuel production fitting into a solution to our present energy problem?
Secretary of Agriculture Ed Schafer (Schafer): Well, I’m in that “all the above” category. I think we need to be pursuing all kinds of energy sources.
In 1996, I was the chairman of the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission, an organization representing all the states that produce oil and gas. We developed a public policy and issued a booklet called “America, a Dependent Nation.” At that point, a little over 40% of our energy came from nondomestic sources. In other words, imports - mostly of oil.
We projected at that time that if we didn’t do something about developing domestic sources of energy, we would see the day when 60 or 65% of our energy would be imported. In 1996, we made a presentation to then-President Bill Clinton and presidential candidate Bob Dole and said, “We need to enter this into the public discussion in the presidential race.” Of course, we all know we didn’t hear anything about that in the presidential race. Today, we’re looking at 65% of our energy needs met by imports. Read more.
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