FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 27, 2008
Contact:
Debra Greenspan
202-741-5573
WASHINGTON, DC - This week, several new consumer, policy, anti-hunger, environmental and food industry groups added their names to the growing ranks of the Food Before Fuel campaign, joining the call for Congress to revisit U.S. biofuel mandates and subsidies. More than twenty-five state-based and national organizations have signed on in recent weeks, following the June 10th national launch.
According to the Campaign’s statement of principles, the members of the Food Before Fuel campaign will encourage policymakers to “revisit and restructure policies that have increased our reliance on food as an energy source, and to carefully address how to develop alternative fuels that do not pit our energy needs against affordable food and environmental sustainability.”
Congressional policies mandate the conversion of more than one-third of all U.S. corn to ethanol, with additional subsidies and tariffs further promoting the diversion of food to fuel. Food policy experts broadly agree that these policies have contributed to record food price inflation, and the International Monetary Fund reports that U.S. food-to-fuel policy is responsible for more than 30 percent of food price inflation globally. Oxfam International just released a similar estimate, and claims that over 30 million people have been driven into poverty due to biofuel policy.
New studies by former USDA Chief Economist Keith Collins and agricultural economist Dr. Thomas Elam have shown that federal ethanol mandates have placed significant pressure on food prices here in the U.S., while any effect on gasoline prices has been “almost too small to measure.”
Recent additions to the Food Before Fuel campaign are listed below, and more information is available at www.foodbeforefuel.org :
New Jersey Food Council
MANA A National Latina Organization
New Jersey Environmental Federation
Citizens Against Government Waste
Hispanic Alliance for Prosperity Institute
The New York State Restaurant Association
Maryland-Delaware –DC Beverage Association
International Dairy Foods Association
New Jersey Restaurant Association
Third Way
Atlas Biscuit Company
Citymeals-on-Wheels
Maryland Retailers Association
Food Bank of South Jersey
La Casa de Don Pedro
New Jersey Beef Industry Council
New Jersey Catholic Conference
Salvation Army New Jersey Division
The Citizens Advice Bureau
The New Jersey Chapter of the Sierra Club
Phillips Foods
City of Lambertville
Maryland Restaurant Association
United Food and Commercial Workers International Union Region 1
UFCW Local 27
Formica Brothers Bakery