The news broke this week when a Capitol Hill insider publication Roll Call published a story outlining the efforts of the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) and some of its assorted cohorts to smear ethanol. And Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) blasted GMA on the floor of the Senate -- and even posted GMA's proposal on his website.
GMA said it wanted to build "a global center-left coalition," which includes environmental, hunger, food aid, poverty, development, senior, children, business, nutrition, farm consumer and labor groups; taking advantage of the "extraordinary earned media opportunities" caused by rising food prices; mobilizing local food banks and "other local opinion leaders in key states and districts"; and hiring "trusted third-party experts" to document the effect of fuel mandates on, among other things, global hunger and poverty, job losses in the food industry and inflation.
A pretty disgusting list all based not on GMA's concern for these groups, but for profits for its member companies (even though many of its companies are quite profitable).
The Nebraska Corn Growers Association posted the article here.
“It is becoming very clear that there is a lot of money being made out there by companies that are doing very well with higher energy costs, and they want to keep it that way by shifting the blame to agriculture,” said Don Hutchens, executive director of the Nebraska Corn Board. Hutchens made his statement in a news release, which is posted here.
Another area of concern is that one of GMA’s spokesman on the subject is a former environmental activist who worked for a group that is generally anti-agriculture and anti-technology. “Why GMA would hire someone who is anti-agriculture is something I can’t understand,” Hutchens said.
Senator Grassley (R-IA) called GMA’s tactics an “Ethanol Smear Campaign”. He went on to say, “None of these criticisms are based on sound science, economics or even common sense.” Grassley said he felt it is important for policy makers and the American people to know who’s behind the effort, and that they have outlined their strategy of using environmental, hunger and food aid groups to demonstrate their contrived “crisis”.
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