John Cornyn Hits East Texas; Wins Bogus Award For Helping “Economic Development” In East Texas

U.S. Senator John Cornyn made a campaign swing through East Texas on Monday with stops in Tyler and Nacogdoches–where he was presented an award for, of all things, helping expand economic development in East Texas. From KTRE-TV in Lufkin:

United States Senator John Cornyn was in Nacogdoches Monday to honor a group and receive an award himself.  The Nacogdoches County Chamber of Commerce honored Senator Cornyn with the “Spirit of Enterprise” award for promoting growth and helping to expand economic development in East Texas.

Video here:

That award couldn’t be more ironic, because Cornyn has done zero for economic development anywhere in Texas, much less East Texas, except announce grants given by various government agencies and taking credit for them being awarded.

Yet, the good folks at the Nacogdoches County Chamber of Commerce appear to be snowed. I guess they didn’t realize that Cornyn voted “yes” on a host of free trade agreements that don’t exactly spur economic growth in Texas (not to mention a host of other problems from labor issues and human rights to often being more beneficial for other countries and not the U.S.). I wonder who on the board of the Nacogdoches County Chamber helped make sure Cornyn had this great campaign photo-op?

Where was Cornyn when a Goodyear tire plant was threatened with closure in 2006–a threat that was ultimately fulfilled? Oh, that’s right! He showed up almost two years after the fact with a grant to help fund a strategy to figure out what to do with all of the people who are now unemployed thanks to the Goodyear closure.

The award, of course, wasn’t all of Cornyn’s East Texas trip. He also managed stage a pretty terrible press op to the “drill here, drill now” argument at the Brookshire’s Grocery Company Warehouse in Tyler. Video:

Here is some of what Cornyn had to say:

“What this does is say we’re going to develop in the submerged lands off the coastlines as part of our way to rely more on what God gave us here in America rather than continue to depend so much on imported oil from the Middle East.”

Of course, Cornyn is dead wrong, as McBlogger previously noted:

1) There’s not enough oil to really make a dent in demand.
2) You can’t bring what’s there up fast enough to have a real impact on prices without stomping on speculation.
3) Bush could end high oil prices in an afternoon by starving speculators.
4) Did I mention there’s not enough oil down there?

And, of course, there was this idiotic bit about Ethanol:

THE SENATOR ALSO CO-SPONSORED A BILL IN MAY THAT WOULD FREEZE THE MANDATE ON THE PRODUCTION OF NINE BILLION GALLONS OF DOMESTIC ETHANOL.

“We know that sometimes the best of intentions can invoke the law of unintended consequences and that’s what happened when it comes to corn-based ethanol. Now the use of food for fuel has had unintended consequences driving up the cost of food.”

If Cornyn believes that the increased use of Ethanol is to blame for rising food prices, he is sadly mistaken. From an op-ed in the San Diego Union-Tribune earlier this month by the head of the Center for Molecular Agriculture at UC-San Diego:

Prices of all basic agricultural commodities – rice, corn, wheat, sorghum, soybeans – have nearly doubled in the last two years, paralleling the rise in the cost of oil. Not only have bread and breakfast cereals increased in price, but also beer (made from barley or rice), soft drinks (sweetened with corn syrup) as well as beef, chicken, pork and all animal products, including dairy, fed on grains.

The causes of these price increases vary from country to country and from crop to crop and are so complex that no simple solution is in sight. The real solution is to accelerate agricultural production worldwide, a goal that will take years to achieve.

The rising affluence in the emerging economies of China and India has increased the demand for meat, and Asia has become a big grain importer. People who can afford to, would rather eat pork or chicken than rice and lentils. But it takes four to eight pounds of grain to produce a pound of meat.

The recent dramatic increase in the price of oil is a second major cause of the rise in food prices.

We’re going to stop there for just a second and let you absorb that statement. the increase in the price of oil is a major cause in the rise of food prices. Now we’ll continue where we left off:

Agriculture, food processing and food distribution are energy-intensive. Fields must be planted and fertilized, crops sprayed and harvested, foods must be processed and transported, cows must be milked and the milk pasteurized, and meat, dairy products, fruits and vegetables are transported over long distances in refrigerated conditions. Every step in the food chain requires energy. As energy prices go up, so do food costs.

Down at number three on the list is biofuel production. And, since Big John probably doesn’t fully understand this even though he talks about it, we’ll share more:

Concerned about global warming caused by the rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide, the European Union and many of our states, including California, instituted biofuel mandates, and biofuel production is the third major cause of the food price increases. In most cases, producing biofuels means converting oils from canola or soybean into biodiesel, or starch from corn or wheat into ethanol, setting up a competition between food and fuel.

But wait, there is more. Global Warming. Yep. Global climate change is another leading cause of high food prices. But, of course, Big Bad John doesn’t mention that because he probably doesn’t believe in it:

Global climate change brought about by the rising temperature of the Earth is the fourth major cause. Altered weather patterns have been accompanied by floods, tropical storms and droughts all over the globe. Witness Myanmar this week. Australia, normally a big exporter of wheat and rice, is in the grip of a multiyear drought and has seen its grain production plummet.

Alas, alas. Big Bad John just doesn’t get it. Now he’s developed a “blame it on ethanol” strategy. Of course, this “blame it on ethanol” strategy is nothing but a good thing for his friends at Big Oil, as is his phobia of a windfall profits tax.

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