Secretary Talks Renewable Fuels & Financial Crisis Hangs On
Secretary Talks Renewable Fuels & Financial Crisis Hangs On plus Food Forethought. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Northwest Report.
Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack talked with reporters on Friday to announce plans to improve the nations renewable fuels infrastructure.
VILSACK: The President has directed us to work hard over the next several years to try to increase the number of flexible fuel pumps nationwide by at least 10-thousand. This will give consumers a choice in the fuel they’re using so today I’m announcing that USDA is taking steps to making it easier for service station owners to finance flexible fuel pumps. We believe this will help American’s use E85 or other variations of ethanol in their gas tanks. What we’re doing is we’re making an important clarification to our REAP program that’s going to allow us at USDA to provide grants and load guarantees for the first time to folks at convenience stores, gas stations, petroleum marketers who are wishing to install flexible fuel pumps.
WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy, says - the hangover from the financial crisis is still with us. High unemployment in developed economies and sharp belt-tightening in Europe will keep fueling protectionist pressures. Lamy challenges WTO Members to continue to be vigilant and resist these pressures and to work toward opening markets rather than closing them. He says - “Stability” should be the name of the game for 2011.
Now with today’s Food Forethought, here’s Lacy Gray.
Some young 4 H members in California are getting more in depth life lessons than they even imagined from one of their most recent projects. The group of young people and their adult project leaders decided to prepare and serve food to the homeless in their area, and even secured a two thousand dollar service learning grant to help them in their efforts. What they didn’t count on was that local and state officials would set up and take notice, and not in a “pat on the back, you’re doing a good job” kind of way. Rather more the “if you want to feed the homeless you have to meet state requirements including a certified kitchen, persons eighteen and over only preparing the food, and oh yeah, reams of paper work to fill out” kind of way. Life lesson number one: You can’t fight city hall. You can however, maybe, come to an agreement that will appease everyone involved. Life lesson number two: When life hands you lemons, make lemonade. And life lesson number three: Anything worth doing, is worth doing right, and in this instance that may mean having to jump through a few state and local health regulation hoops. Trust me kids, it will be worth it.
Thanks Lacy. That’s today’s Northwest Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.
