| Upper Midwest farmer leaders hope Congress turns to American
agriculture to provide energy.
Bills going through Congress requiring mixing agricultural products
such as corn and soybean oil with fuels are getting new attention.
Congress had been considering the requirement, but the terrorist
attacks raised the farmers position in the energy debate to a new
level.
If there are going to be attacks around petroleum exporting nations
and there will be disruptions in supply, this would be the time to push
for blending grain oils with fuel, said Joe Martin of the Minnesota Farm
Bureau Federation.
The bills would raise the grain oil content of fuels gradually, to give
sufficient time for new processing plants to be built. For instance, they
would require 0.8 percent of fuels to be grain oil next year, 2 percent in
2008 and 5 percent in 2008. |