The Associated Press, 19 December 2006
By LAURA WIDES-MUNOZ
CORAL GABLES - In one of his final initiatives as governor, Jeb Bush on Monday announced the creation of the Interamerican Ethanol Commission to promote the use of the alternative fuel throughout the Americas and slowly wean the region off gasoline.
Bush said his support for ethanol was shaped by watching the suffering of Floridians through eight hurricanes in the past two years, and the resulting damage caused by a temporary loss of fuel supply.
“Wouldn’t it be nice to have alternative sources of fuel as we prepare for hurricanes?” he said.
Also launching the commission was Luis Alberto Moreno, head of the Interamerican Development Bank, and former Brazilian agriculture minister Roberto Rodrigues, who now heads the country’s agribusiness council.
“For the last 35 years, I have been thinking how stupid has been humankind to build a whole civilization over oil, which is something that is going to finish one day,” an emotional Rodrigues told a crowd of more than 100 mostly business leaders at the Biltmore Hotel.
Rodrigues said in the coming months the group will begin presenting “road shows” on ethanol throughout Latin America.
Bush leaves office in January. He said increased ethanol consumption will reduce the nation’s dependence on foreign oil, help improve the environment and provide a catalyst for poor nations to “grow their own energy.”
But some experts have questioned whether a sufficient amount of ethanol could be produced to make a significant dent in oil consumption.
Brazil meets nearly half its fuel demand for passenger motor vehicles with ethanol, almost all of it made from sugar cane. It is also Florida’s top trading partner, with $10.9 billion in trade last year.
Bush acknowledged that broadening an international ethanol push in other parts of the United States is a tough sell, especially in the Midwest, which receives billions of dollars in federal subsidies for corn production, a major source of ethanol.
Earlier this year his brother, President Bush, opposed an extension of the 54-cent-per-gallon tariff on imported ethanol, but Congress passed the measure Dec. 8.
“You can see how agriculture producers in our country worry about ideas that take away some of their protection,” he said, joking that the unpopularity of his stance in the Midwest was “living proof that I’m not running [for president].”
But he added that expanding the worldwide consumption of ethanol will create plenty of opportunities for U.S. producers.
“There’s no possible way that Brazil by itself or the United States by itself could expand capacity that quick. So a level of cooperation, I don’t think, is threatening for American agriculture,” he said. “In fact I think it will yield lowering of cost and expansion of markets.”
Copyright 2006, AP
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