Bio Fuels

On the one hand, USDA is being pressured to release the Conservation Reserve Program acreage for growing annual crops, on another there's pressure to roll back the ethanol mandates/subsidy, and on a third there's discussion of converting to cellulosic ethanol. But, as this Slate article says, there's tradeoffs. Every acre of land on the face of the earth has a current use. If you want to change the use, you trade off one thing for another: it may be food for fuel, it may be greenhouse gases versus carbon traps, it may be wilderness versus cultivation, but there's always trade offs.