Food or Fuel—Will We Have to Choose?

Worldview ◽  
1981 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 5-7
Author(s):  
Norman Rask
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
High Energy ◽  
Agricultural Trade ◽  
Liquid Fuels ◽  
Energy Prices ◽  
Agricultural Resources ◽  
Policy Choices ◽  
Price Increases ◽  
Adequate Food ◽  
The U.S

Milton Freidman is said to have defined economics in its simplest form with the expression, “there is no such thing as a free lunch.” Recent energy price increases have raised the production cost of food, making that lunch even more expensive. In addition, high energy prices have created incentives for several countries to turn directly to agriculture as a source of energy, extracting alcohol from several crops, including sugar cane and corn. Continued political instability in the Middle East intensifies this interest in domestic alternatives to oil. But most countries do not have the agricultural ability to produce a significant portion of liquidfuel needs and still provide adequate food supplies. This raises concern about how agricultural resources should be used. The resulting food/fuel choice depends on a unique set of conditions in each country.The United States has a key role to play in both energy and food matters. The U.S. consumes almost a third of all petroleum produced in the world, imports almost 50 per cent of its domestic petroleum needs, and is the major exporter of agricultural products. The sheer magnitude of both the U.S.'demand for liquid fuels and its share of world agricultural trade makes U.S. policy choices on the food/fuel interface of critical importance domestically and in other areas as well.

scholarly journals Meta-Strategic Lobbying: The 1998 Steel Imports Case

2005 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Douglas A. Brook
Keyword(s):  
Steel Industry ◽  
The United States ◽  
Factors Affecting ◽  
Policy Choices ◽  
Strategic Approach ◽  
Almost All ◽  
Governmental Response ◽  
Comparative Examination ◽  
Different Levels ◽  
The U.S

In 1998, the domestic steel industry in the United States devised and executed a complex and sophisticated effort to achieve an effective non-market response to a sudden, persistent, and damaging surge of imported steel. This campaign lasted until 2002, when President George W. Bush invoked Section 201 of the U.S. trade laws to impose tariffs on imports of most steel products. This case of the steel industry's trade policy campaign provides an opportunity to examine selected models of protection-seeking industries and lobbying to ask why and how the steel coalition achieved this extraordinary governmental response. These questions are explored though a descriptive case of the steel industry's protection-seeking campaign followed by a comparative examination of previous models of protection-seeking firms, and lobbying to achieve protectionist policies. A comparison with selected models of the determinants of protection-seeking and factors affecting lobbying strategies show that most, almost all, were present in the steel case. In fact, a meta-strategic approach that transcends the customary understanding of lobbying is suggested in a complex policy environment. Such an environment can be characterized by: the need to influence multiple governmental entities – legislative, regulatory, executive; the desire for multiple outcomes with varying levels of specificity – laws or resolutions, administrative rulings, policy choices; interactions between different levels and branches of government; employment of coordinated interrelated lobbying techniques; and simultaneity of these factors.

Commentary: The United States, Agriculture, and the Doha Round of Negotiations

2005 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 1850051
Author(s):  
Cathy Jabara
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
Agricultural Trade ◽  
Agricultural Economics ◽  
Economic Research ◽  
International Trade Commission ◽  
Doha Round ◽  
Department Of Agriculture ◽  
Agricultural Trade Liberalization ◽  
Treasury Department ◽  
The U.S

A commentary on Patrick Messerlin's article, "Agricultural Trade Liberalization." Cathy Jabara is the Division Chief of the Agriculture and Fishery Products Division at the U.S. International Trade Commission. She has been at the Commission for about 12 years, and previously served in positions at the Economic Research Service at the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Treasury Department. She received her Ph.D. in Agricultural Economics at Purdue University. She is primarily involved in the research program at the Commission. Her responsibilities include analysis of the effects of trade agreements on the U.S. economy and industries.

scholarly journals Dynamic Interrelationships between the U.S. Agricultural Trade Balance and the Macroeconomy

2007 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 457-470 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jungho Baek ◽  
Won W. Koo
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Exchange Rate ◽  
Money Supply ◽  
Trade Balance ◽  
The United States ◽  
Agricultural Trade ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Trading Partners ◽  
The Exchange Rate ◽  
The U.S

The effects of the exchange rate and the income and money supply of the United States and its major trading partners on the U.S. agricultural trade balance are examined using an autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model. Results suggest that the exchange rate is the key determinant of the short- and long-run behavior of the trade balance. It is also found that the income and money supply in both the United States and the trading partners have significant impacts on U.S. agricultural trade in both the short and long run.

Environmental Policy

2019 ◽  
pp. 196-218 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathryn Harrison
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Fossil Fuels ◽  
The United States ◽  
Energy Prices ◽  
The World ◽  
Political Challenge ◽  
Per Capita ◽  
Mitigate Climate Change ◽  
Special Responsibility ◽  
The U.S

Although Canada and the United States (U.S.) have a special responsibility to act on climate change given per capita greenhouse gas emissions among the highest in the world, both have repeatedly failed to meet their domestic emissions targets. Their failure ultimately reflects the formidable political challenge of transforming economies heavily reliant on fossil fuels, which prompts opposition from both emissions-intensive industries and voters resistant to higher energy prices. Efforts to mitigate climate change have been undertaken in fits and starts, with leadership flipping between the U.S. and Canada as center-left leaders have exercised institutional points of leverage available to them. However, Democratic presidents’ efforts have been stymied by Republican successors, while Canadian governments’ efforts have been undermined by concerns about competitiveness with the U.S. That challenge looms large once again as Canada has pledged to meet its target under the Paris Agreement despite Donald Trump’s reversal of the U.S. commitment.

scholarly journals Comparative advantages and complementarity of Sino-US agricultural trade: An empirical analysis

2011 ◽  
Vol 57 (No. 3) ◽  
pp. 118-131 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ch Shuai ◽  
X. Wang
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Empirical Analysis ◽  
The United States ◽  
Agricultural Trade ◽  
Agricultural Products ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Export Structure ◽  
Resource Endowment ◽  
Comparative Advantages ◽  
The U.S

By adopting the RCA, CMS, TCD, SI and TCI models, this paper has made an empirical analysis of the comparative advantages and complementarity of the agricultural trade between China and the United States in terms of sixteen major agricultural products since 1997. The results indicate that (1) the exporting agri-products of China and the United States reflect the characteristics of the resource endowment of each country; (2) China's agri-product competitiveness has decreased after its WTO accession, while the country's agri-export structure has been upgraded; (3) Sino-US agri-trade dependency continues to rise, and the U.S. relies more on China than China does on the U.S.; (4) China and the United Sates have good complementarity in the agricultural trade, which tends to strengthen after the China's accession to the WTO. Policy implications are proposed accordingly based on these findings.

Needed Research with Respect to Energy Use in Agricultural Production

1977 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Havlicek ◽  
Oral Capps
Keyword(s):  
Agricultural Production ◽  
Fossil Fuels ◽  
Energy Use ◽  
High Energy ◽  
Oil Price ◽  
Energy Resources ◽  
Energy Prices ◽  
Agricultural Industry ◽  
Energy Demands ◽  
Price Increases

The agricultural industry, like other industries, has become increasingly dependent upon energy resources such as electricity, fossil fuels, chemicals and fertilizers, largely due to relatively low energy prices. In the middle 1970s, however, energy prices rose sharply as a result of continuously rightward shifting energy demands and leftward shifting energy supplies due to dwindling domestic reserves and oil price increases by OPEC nations. Although the rapidly rising energy prices may have been viewed initially as a temporary phenomenon, most now agree that we are in an era of high energy prices. Carter and Youde [2] have discussed some impacts of the changing energy situation on U.S. agriculture.

The Economic Effects of Energy Price Shocks

2008 ◽  
Vol 46 (4) ◽  
pp. 871-909 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lutz Kilian
Keyword(s):  
Stock Prices ◽  
Energy Demand ◽  
The United States ◽  
Economic Effects ◽  
Energy Price ◽  
Energy Prices ◽  
Price Shocks ◽  
Price Increases ◽  
New Energy ◽  
Key Issues

Large fluctuations in energy prices have been a distinguishing characteristic of the U.S. economy since the 1970s. Turmoil in the Middle East, rising energy prices in the United States, and evidence of global warming recently have reignited interest in the link between energy prices and economic performance. This paper addresses a number of the key issues in this debate: What are energy price shocks and where do they come from? How responsive is energy demand to changes in energy prices? How do consumer's expenditure patterns evolve in response to energy price shocks? How do energy price shocks affect U.S. real output, inflation, and stock prices? Why do energy price increases seem to cause recessions but energy price decreases do not seem to cause expansions? Why has there been a surge in the price of oil in recent years? Why has this new energy price shock not caused a recession so far? Have the effects of energy price shocks waned since the 1980s and, if so, why? As the paper demonstrates, it is critical to account for the endogeneity of energy prices and to differentiate between the effects of demand and supply shocks in energy markets when answering these questions.

scholarly journals Integration of the Back-end of the Nuclear Fuel Cycle: An Overview

MRS Advances ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (5-6) ◽  
pp. 253-264
Author(s):  
François Diaz-Maurin ◽  
Rodney C. Ewing
Keyword(s):  
Nuclear Fuel ◽  
Fuel Cycle ◽  
Nuclear Fuel Cycle ◽  
The United States ◽  
Nuclear Waste Management ◽  
Policy Choices ◽  
Interim Storage ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Fully Coupled ◽  
The U.S

ABSTRACTRecent efforts have been made toward the integration of the back-end of the nuclear fuel cycle in the United States. The back-end integration seeks to address several management challenges: 1) current storage practices are not optimized for transport and disposal; 2) the impact of interim storage on the disposal strategy needs to be evaluated; and 3) the back-end is affected by—and affects—nuclear fuel cycle and energy policy choices. The back-end integration accounts for the various processes of nuclear waste management—onsite storage, consolidated storage, transport and geological disposal. Ideally, these processes should be fully coupled so that benefits and impacts can be assessed at the level of the full fuel cycle. The paper summarizes the causes and consequences of the absence of integration at the back-end of the nuclear fuel cycle in the U.S., critically reviews ongoing integration efforts, and suggests a framework that would support the back-end integration.

An American Language

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rosina Lozano
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
National Policy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Spanish Language ◽  
Spanish Speakers ◽  
Language Recognition ◽  
Political Language ◽  
Political Issue ◽  
History Of ◽  
The U.S

An American Language is a political history of the Spanish language in the United States. The nation has always been multilingual and the Spanish language in particular has remained as an important political issue into the present. After the U.S.-Mexican War, the Spanish language became a language of politics as Spanish speakers in the U.S. Southwest used it to build territorial and state governments. In the twentieth century, Spanish became a political language where speakers and those opposed to its use clashed over what Spanish's presence in the United States meant. This book recovers this story by using evidence that includes Spanish language newspapers, letters, state and territorial session laws, and federal archives to profile the struggle and resilience of Spanish speakers who advocated for their language rights as U.S. citizens. Comparing Spanish as a language of politics and as a political language across the Southwest and noncontiguous territories provides an opportunity to measure shifts in allegiance to the nation and exposes differing forms of nationalism. Language concessions and continued use of Spanish is a measure of power. Official language recognition by federal or state officials validates Spanish speakers' claims to US citizenship. The long history of policies relating to language in the United States provides a way to measure how U.S. visions of itself have shifted due to continuous migration from Latin America. Spanish-speaking U.S. citizens are crucial arbiters of Spanish language politics and their successes have broader implications on national policy and our understanding of Americans.

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