Word: vilsack
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...intensely politicized Agriculture Department. Any serious opponent of the farm lobby - like the six implausible candidates, including rural-affairs activist Chuck Hassebrook and organic farmer Fred Kirschenmann, that a group of prominent foodies recently suggested to Obama - would get ripped to shreds by the aggies on Capitol Hill. Vilsack probably won't launch a Nixon-goes-to-China initiative to block environmentally destructive biofuels, but he might not resist that kind of initiative coming out of the White House...
That's because Vilsack - like Obama and his energy-and-environment team - has shown an especially deep interest in climate change. He wouldn't be the first devoted biofuels advocate to change his mind after recognizing they're making climate change worse, not to mention contributing to food insecurity here and food riots in the Third World. In fact, a climate-change task force Vilsack co-chaired for the Council on Foreign Relations recommended that "the United States phase out domestic subsidies for mature biofuels such as conventional corn-based ethanol." That wouldn't go over big in Iowa...
...January, I chatted with Vilsack about biofuels after a Hillary Clinton campaign event at a soy-biodiesel plant in Newton, Iowa. The theme of the day was that biofuels produce jobs, and Vilsack was pushing Iowa as "the clean-energy capital of America." But he was clearly aware of the new research suggesting that biofuels in general - and corn ethanol in particular - created more carbon emissions by accelerating deforestation than they saved by replacing fossil fuels. "It's definitely something we need to study," he said. Vilsack suggested that second-generation biofuels like cellulosic ethanol manufactured from switchgrass could solve...
...improvement on gasoline if there isn't enough unproductive land. Perhaps advanced biofuels from crop waste or even municipal waste would work better. In any case, it was interesting to see Obama make two references Wednesday to "advanced biofuels" and none to ethanol. And it's interesting that Vilsack has thought about this stuff in some detail...
...devising a "life-cycle" test designed to measure whether various biofuels really reduce overall carbon emissions from the field to the tank; the farm lobby is already pushing for a weak test, because a strict one could halt the biofuel revolution. The position Vilsack's department takes on this arcane test could signal whether it will really serve, as Obama pledged on Wednesday, "not big agribusiness or Washington influence peddlers but family farmers and the American people." But that would require real change - not only for the department but for Vilsack and for Obama...