US Senator Charles 'Chuck' Grassley (Iowa) is one of the biggest boosters for government subsidies to encourage farmers to grow corn for use as fuel for cars and trucks. Food-for-fuel policies are among the causes of the recent price rises in food prices that is causing hunger and misery among the world's poorest people. This video shows the two sides of Chuck Grassley. First, speaking at a Baptist meeting in Atlanta, Georgia, he says that "turning a blind eye and a deaf ear to world hunger exposes the selfish side of human nature." Grassley then reveals his own selfish side by vigorously defending the crops-for-fuel subsidies during a telephone news conference with agriculture reporters. Defying all economic logic, Grassley denies any link between the diversion of millions of acres of farm land for growing fuel and the rising price of corn and other staple commodities.Grassley is a senior member of the Senate Agriculture Committee that is currently writing the US farm bill and the Senate Finance Committee that grants tax breaks to ethanol producers and maintains a high import tariff against ethanol from outside the US.As well as being a Senator, he is also a corn farmer from Iowa, the biggest producer of corn-based-ethanol in the US. So that may explain it. Good old pork barrel politics.
