Federal and state wildland fire experts jointly respond to Southern California Wildfires

"I spoke with Governor Schwarzenegger yesterday and I am pleased that we can help California by lending our firefighters, equipment and aircraft which are the backbone for combating devastating wildfires," said Conner. "Our thoughts are with all of those affected by this disaster and we will continue to dedicate all available resources to contain these fires."

Hot Farming Stock

Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne and Acting Agriculture Secretary Chuck Conner today announced that additional Incident Management Teams are en route to Southern California to assist with containing the rapidly spreading wildfires. These teams are comprised of specialists from eight state and federal agencies who routinely work together in responding to disaster and wildfire emergencies.

More than 2,000 members of the interagency wildland firefighting community mobilized through the National Interagency Coordination Center are engaged in a wide range of wildfire response efforts to several fires in Southern California. Requests for assistance through the National Interagency Fire Center began on Oct. 21 and firefighters and incident management teams were mobilized from across the country. These professionals come from across the spectrum of federal, state and local wildland fire organizations.

"California's tremendous firefighters are not alone in fighting these fires," said Kempthorne. "The federal government, through the National Interagency Fire Center, has responded to all requests for assistance made by the State of California. Last night, I assured Governor Schwarzenegger, Senator Feinstein and other California leaders that the federal family stands ready to offer additional assistance if requested."

Jason Berkes

www.jasonberkes.com/usda

US Government crazy about Ethanol

The Senate bill calls for annual ethanol production to rise to 36 billion gallons by 2022, up from less than 5 billion gallons in 2006. Let's set aside the question of whether that's enough ethanol to wean us from an oil addiction that has us consuming more than 140 billion gallons of gasoline each year. What are the economic implications of trying to meet the Senate target?

The U.S. Department of Agriculture projects that 12.5 billion bushels of corn will be produced this year. A bushel of corn yields about 2.7 gallons of ethanol, so we'll harvest enough corn to distill nearly 34 billion gallons. However, if we used all of our corn for ethanol, what would we feed our livestock? Where would we get high-fructose corn syrup to sweeten our sodas? It's not an all-or-nothing proposition, but even with increases in corn acreage and yields, the demand for ethanol is already crowding out other corn products.

For years, ethanol's share of corn production hovered around 5 percent. But since 2000, that percentage has grown. Last year, about 20 percent of the American corn crop was used for alcohol-based fuels, and the USDA projects that it will be more than 30 percent by 2016. Even at 30 percent it's unlikely that we'll meet the Senate's goal using corn ethanol. But perhaps that's just as well, because it'll be very hard to build the necessary distillation and distribution capacity by 2022.

Jason E. Berkes
www.jasonberkes.com