WASHINGTON —Roused by soaring food costs, an unusual alliance of advocacy groups that includes the two largest foodservice organizations has petitioned Congress to reconsider governmental incentives to turn corn and other food-related products into fuel.
In addition to the National Restaurant Association and the National Council of Chain Restaurants, the 19-member coalition includes the Hispanic Institute, Friends of the Earth, the Environmental Working Group and the Grocery Manufacturers Association. —Roused by soaring food costs, an unusual alliance of advocacy groups that includes the two largest foodservice organizations has petitioned Congress to reconsider governmental incentives to turn corn and other food-related products into fuel.
In a letter to two Democrats who were leading recent congressional hearings on federal food-to-fuel mandates and subsidies, the newly formed alliance acknowledged that food prices also are being driven higher by such things as “increased global demand, speculative bidding and changing weather patterns.” —Roused by soaring food costs, an unusual alliance of advocacy groups that includes the two largest foodservice organizations has petitioned Congress to reconsider governmental incentives to turn corn and other food-related products into fuel.
However, factors that Congress can control are federal “mandates and subsidies to turn food crops into fuel,” according to the letter from the so-far-unnamed alliance. —Roused by soaring food costs, an unusual alliance of advocacy groups that includes the two largest foodservice organizations has petitioned Congress to reconsider governmental incentives to turn corn and other food-related products into fuel.
“We urge you and your colleagues to continue examining food-to-fuel mandates in the context of national and global priorities,” said the letter, addressed to New York Democrats Sen. Charles Schumer and Rep. Carolyn Maloney. “We must quickly transition toward supporting solutions that don’t pit our energy needs against our food needs,” the alliance also said. —Roused by soaring food costs, an unusual alliance of advocacy groups that includes the two largest foodservice organizations has petitioned Congress to reconsider governmental incentives to turn corn and other food-related products into fuel.
In addition to sending the letter, the alliance is considering offering its backing to a bill by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, that would freeze at the 2007 level the government’s otherwise growing mandate for particular volumes of ethanol production. —Roused by soaring food costs, an unusual alliance of advocacy groups that includes the two largest foodservice organizations has petitioned Congress to reconsider governmental incentives to turn corn and other food-related products into fuel.
Because of their diversion of crops and acreage from food production, corn-based ethanol and to a lesser extent soybean-based biodiesel fuel increasingly have been criticized for causing an agricultural chain reaction of inflation. However, some leading economists, commodity experts and Bush administration officials contend that fuel costs, rising food demand in newly affluent foreign markets and commodity shortages globally are bigger factors. —Roused by soaring food costs, an unusual alliance of advocacy groups that includes the two largest foodservice organizations has petitioned Congress to reconsider governmental incentives to turn corn and other food-related products into fuel.
In any case, recent corporate-earnings reports from Panera Bread, Burger King and Starbucks all have cited higher commodity costs as having suppressed results, and the foodservice industry at large has struggled with a recent doubling, at least, in overall food inflation from what had been a typical 2.5-percent annual rate for nearly 15 years. According to the NRA, food prices have risen 15.5 percent in the past two years, costing restaurateurs billions of dollars. —Roused by soaring food costs, an unusual alliance of advocacy groups that includes the two largest foodservice organizations has petitioned Congress to reconsider governmental incentives to turn corn and other food-related products into fuel.
At press time, Congress was considering a rider to the $300 billion farm bill that was dubbed the Close the Enron Loophole Act and would regulate unchecked electronic speculation in energy commodities. Those kinds of opportunistic investments are seen as substantially but artificially inflating fuel costs that contribute to food spikes. —Roused by soaring food costs, an unusual alliance of advocacy groups that includes the two largest foodservice organizations has petitioned Congress to reconsider governmental incentives to turn corn and other food-related products into fuel.
A revised iteration of the farm bill itself would pay $25 billion in subsidies to wealthy farmers for not growing food, which has been criticized as irresponsible at a time of commodity shortages and drew a veto threat from President Bush. The bill also would reduce the per-gallon tax credit for blenders of corn-based ethanol from 51 cents to 45 cents while increasing incentives for nonfood-based ethanol to $1.01 per gallon. —Roused by soaring food costs, an unusual alliance of advocacy groups that includes the two largest foodservice organizations has petitioned Congress to reconsider governmental incentives to turn corn and other food-related products into fuel.
Some critics were saying that incentives for grain-based fuels were unacceptable, either because of lucrative demand for those alternatives or because of unforeseen effects of the nation’s biofuel policies. —Roused by soaring food costs, an unusual alliance of advocacy groups that includes the two largest foodservice organizations has petitioned Congress to reconsider governmental incentives to turn corn and other food-related products into fuel.
Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., the highest-ranking Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, has called for “an immediate waiver” of the government’s ethanol mandate. —Roused by soaring food costs, an unusual alliance of advocacy groups that includes the two largest foodservice organizations has petitioned Congress to reconsider governmental incentives to turn corn and other food-related products into fuel.
“People are starving to death because of this transfer from food to fuel,” he said. —Roused by soaring food costs, an unusual alliance of advocacy groups that includes the two largest foodservice organizations has petitioned Congress to reconsider governmental incentives to turn corn and other food-related products into fuel.
Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., recently introduced a bill in the House that would repeal tax credits for the production of ethanol, whose agricultural aftereffects he called “a classic case of the law of unintended consequences.” —Roused by soaring food costs, an unusual alliance of advocacy groups that includes the two largest foodservice organizations has petitioned Congress to reconsider governmental incentives to turn corn and other food-related products into fuel.