The following is my open letter to all Congress Critters who voted for HR 2419. Please feel free to use as-is, or to modify to better reflect your own opinion.
HR 2419 is a travesty.
http://www.washingtonwatch.com/bills/show/110_HR_2419.html
Do not vote against President Bush’s veto of it, even after it is re-written to include the missing 34 pages.
The bill allows subsidies to farmers whose income is $1,500,000, financed by wage workers with income as little as $8,750. That is theft. Nobody whose income is more than mine deserves subsidies paid by my honest labor.
I’m a constituent, and I am sincerely interested in why you believe your vote on this bill is good for your constituents.
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=110&session=2&vote=00130
My guess is that you’re not fully aware of how lousy corn is as a “solution” to our energy problems. Most people don’t.
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=grass-makes-better-ethanol-than-corn
But I’m sure you do have at least a basic understanding of the role that US subsidies play in contributing to the current food riots, and the building global food crisis.
To summarize, switchgrass provides 5 times as much energy as is required to produce it, compared to a 0.25 ratio (responsible estimates range from less than 0 to 0.3, and mostly range from 0.2 to 0.3; 1/4 is a convenient amount, and a reasonable estimate). That makes switchgrass approximately 20 times as efficient as corn for the purpose of fuel manufacture, and switchgrass has the additional benefit that it requires no “land use change.”
http://blogs.wsj.com/environmentalcapital/2008/01/23/more-bad-news-for-ethanol/
Finally, I ask you to decline all donations from Archer Daniels Midland, and to look very closely from now on at every bill or amendment to a bill, sponsored by your peers who do accept ADM’s blood money. Their documented efforts to pass off corn ethanol as “green,” despite the known effects on world agriculture markets, alone are enough to categorize all their tax breaks, and all subsidies received by their primary patrons, farmers who do business with Archer Daniels Midland, as “blood money.” Unfortunately, they’re responsible for much more direct human rights abuses.
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=13646&printsafe=1
Thank you for taking the time to consider my input, and please do the right thing when HR 2419, or a rewrite of it, comes up for another vote.
