Wow--very well said, Jim.

The big-farm lobby has long had a lot of clout, and because half the corn
crop now goes to ethanol at inflated prices, they have even more money and
influence.  May I quote myself?  "When money talks, 'free speech' walks."

Bill Witt

BTW, following Donna Buell's lead, I've stopped buying ethanol-gas.  Even
on a simple
calculation of pump prices vs. mileage differences, regular unleaded is a
better deal than ethanol.  (Consider:  mpg is about 10% less with ethanol,
so to drive the same distance, you have to buy 10% more fuel.  Another way
of stating that is that the 'mileage surtax' on ethanol, at $3.50/gallon,
is about 35 cents.   Typically, the difference in pump price is 7 to 10
cents, with regular unleaded *nominally *higher priced.  But the *effective
*difference in price-per-gallon vs. efficiency-per-gallon is a
28-cents-per-gallon advantage for regular unleaded.
On Mon, Feb 13, 2012 at 10:06 AM, Redmond, Jim
<[log in to unmask]>wrote:

>  Working with the flooding on the Missouri River this past year, our
> Sierra Missouri River activist network has been undercut by an organized
> farm lobby that respects truth and science hardly at all.  Missouri and
> Iowa floodplain farmers even deny the cause of the flooding, instead
> claiming a conspiracy between the Corps and environmentalists. If
> twenty years ago the Corps and other scientists had heeded environmental
> critics and worked toward a functioning floodplian, we would not have seen
> this billion dollar disaster. The valley and its residents remain under the
> threat of similar floods in the future as the farm lobby has beaten the
> Army Corps into submission through the recent appropriations bill.
>
>
>
> Unless the public wises up to corngrowers and the bureau, taxpayer dollars
> are going to rebuild a flood control system that led to the disaster we had
> in 2011.
>
> The harvest of 2011 at last puts to rest one of their most compelling
> hoodwinks:  more than half the harvest went straight to the ethanol
> refineries.  They are no longer committed to feeding the world, just making
> a profit.  Of course they will continue to claim they must abuse the earth
> to feed the world.
>
>
>
> Jim Redmond
>
>
>
>
>
>
>  ------------------------------
> *From:* Iowa Discussion, Alerts and Announcements [
> [log in to unmask]] on behalf of William Witt [
> [log in to unmask]]
> *Sent:* Monday, February 13, 2012 8:49 AM
> *To:* [log in to unmask]
> *Subject:* Re: DM Register--thank you Francis Thicke
>
>   How about a contest?  Can anyone document an example of Iowa Farm
> Bureau lobbying where they *weren't *trying to hoodwink the public?
>
> We could probably offer a prize of, oh, $10,000--confident that no one
> will collect.
>
> BW
>
> On Sun, Feb 12, 2012 at 5:35 AM, Phyllis Mains <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> **
>>  Farm Bureau trying to 'hoodwink' the public
>>
>> Iowa Farm Bureau President Craig Hill’s argument against linking
>> conservation compliance to crop insurance subsidies is based on a fallacy
>> (“Farmers’ Concerns Are Not Imaginary,” Feb. 5).
>>
>> The centerpiece of Hill’s argument against conservation compliance is
>> that it would make fixing a gulley on a no-till field disruptive of field
>> operations because it “requires prior Natural Resources Conservation
>> Service approval, which is often a two- or three-day process.” That sounded
>> incorrect to me, so I checked with an NRCS official, and he concurred that
>> it is simply not true that prior approval is needed to fix a gulley on a
>> no-till field.
>>
>> The Farm Bureau should simply acknowledge that they would like to receive
>> federal subsidies without obligation for conservation, rather than try to
>> hoodwink the public with a disingenuous argument.
>>
>> — Francis Thicke, Fairfield
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