Today in Biofuels Opinion: Kissinger, Baker, Shultz, Cohen, Scowcroft, Nunn, Robb, 20 others sign call for new direction in US energy policy

Gen. James Jones, president of the Institute for 21st century Energy: “There’s an energy tsunami coming, and when you see it coming you better get on top of the wave, or you’re going to get crushed by it,”

Jones initiated an open letter which made 13 recommendations in energy efficiency, new domestic production and investment in renewable energy sources.

The letter said in part: “We must re-examine outdated and entrenched positions….We demand more energy and complain about high prices, but we restrict energy exploration and production. We embrace the promise of energy efficiency, but we are slow to make adjustments in our energy-intensive lifestyles.”

The letter was signed by Jones, former White House Chief of Staff Mack McLarty, Secretaries of State James Baker III and George Shultz, former Defense Secretaries Frank Carlucci, William Cohen, William Perry and James Schlesinger; former senior White House advisers Howard Baker, Robert “Bud” McFarlane, Kenneth Duberstein and Brent Scowcroft; former Energy Secretaries James Watkins and Spencer Abraham; former CIA Director James Woolsey; former Commerce Secretary Donald Evans; former Democratic Sens. J. Bennett Johnston, Sam Nunn and Charles Robb;, and former Republican Sen. George Allen.

A letter to the president of OPEC from the Canadian Renewable Fuels Association (CRFA), the European Bioethanol Fuel Associations, the Brazilian Sugarcane and Ethanol Industry Association (UNICA) and the US Renewable Fuels Association: “It has been widely reported that the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) believes “the intrusion of bioethanol on the market” is responsible for 40% of the rise in world oil prices. Since you, as the head of OPEC, provide no explanation for such a self-serving and misleading statement that goes counter to any independent analysis of the fuels market today, one can only conclude that OPEC views competition with biofuels as a direct threat to the cartel you have created and continue to maintain…Competition is the antidote for cartels. The growing volume of biofuels in the global fuels market is helping to keep world oil and gasoline prices lower than OPEC may like.”

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