Obama to launch climate strategy

“We’ll need scientists to design new fuels, and farmers to grow them”

So says the President of the United States of America as he prepares to launch a "climate" strategy next week.
A 'climate' strategy could entail a political strategy to strengthen the position of the Democratic Party in the sparsely populated farm states where policies to grow fuel could be viewed as policies to purchase votes.

The National Research Council just reported on the efficacy of the U.S. Tax Code in reducting "Carbon dioxide and Other Greenhouse Gas Emissions"

"The report found that several existing tax subsidies have unexpected effects, and others yield little reduction in greenhouse gas emissions per dollar of revenue loss. "

Among the measures intended to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, "those for ethanol and other biofuels may have slightly increased greenhouse gas emissions."

...the modeling rsults and existing literature suggest that, when the renewable fuel standards are in place, the bioifuels provisions to the tax code have a small net effect on global GHG emissions. Although the effects are small, they are likely to increase GHG emissions slightly when key factors such as petroleum substitution and indirect land-use change are taken into account"