Rob:  When congress approved a new farm bill in mid May, it mandated a shift to cellulosic ethanol.  The bill was approved by a large bi-partisan majority; yet, the three-hundred-billion dollar piece of legislation does have its critics.  Namely, the Bush Administration that’s says it’s too expensive and does not go far enough in making meaningful reforms.  Oklahoma congressman, Frank Lucas, served on the conference committee that wrote the bill, and I spoke with him after his visit to the Tulsa Chamber.  
Frank Lucas:  If the administration vetoes the bill, I’m lobbying heavily against that, they’ll most assuredly be over ridden.  I don’t think that’s good policy, because there are a number of issues, tax wise and other issues, that the President needs to be able to veto and sustain.  The Farm Bill, the best that we can get under Speaker Pelosi, is not one of those places where he should be wasting his political capital on a veto.  I know it’s not a perfect bill.  I would not have written a bill where three-quarters of the money went to the social nutrition programs.  I would not have written a bill that cut most W T O compliant part of the bill, the direct payments.  I would not have been a part of this kind of a prioritization.  But, in a legislative process, you have to take the situation that’s given you and do the best you possibly can.  This is the best bill for rural America, rural Oklahoma, for farmers and ranchers that we can get, at this time.  Now, five years from now it’ll be a different circumstance.  But at this time, it’s the best we can do, Rob.
Rob:  Energy is part of this new farm bill, bio fuels have been under a lot of scrutiny as of late simply because of the price of food that we’re seeing here and abroad; your reaction?
Lucas:  The bill makes two critical adjustments.  On the cellulosic stuff, the focus is cellulosic instead of the traditional ethanol sources like the corn; and the blending tax, the incentive that the refineries have to take ethanol and mix it with the gasoline is turned down from 51 cents a gallon to 45.  That’s a 10 percent cut.  I don’t think it’s enough to turn the ethanol market upside down, but it’s an adjustment, and perhaps it’s necessary.  But the key thing we really need for the sake of ethanol and renewable fuel is, we need two good years of weather.  It needs to rain on those corn farmers, and our wheat farmers.  American farmers and ranchers can produce the product, if Mother Nature will just cooperate a little bit; and that would take some of the pressure off, of the feed prices.
Rob:  But I have to ask; are bio fuels only part of the overall energy picture?
Lucas:  Yes.  Yes.  The key is, and I use this phrase frequently; all sources of American energy, whether it’s drilling for traditional oil and gas, or it’s ethanol, whether it’s taking the five, now six, wind farms we have in western Oklahoma and turning that into 20 wind farms, whether it’s nuclear energy, whether it’s bio diesel, it’s the whole package.  Every source of American energy that is viable, economically viable, needs to pushed, needs to be encouraged, and we need to incentivize research.  Once we’ve come up with every source we can, at home, then we’ll address our friends around the world.  Why send American dollars away to buy fuel when we could be spending that money at home, creating jobs at home, having a dependable source at home, here in the United States?