Tonight, President Bush Will Ask Congress And America's Scientists, Farmers, Industry Leaders, And Entrepreneurs To Join Him In Pursuing The Goal Of Reducing U.S. Gasoline Usage By 20 Percent In The Next Ten Years – Twenty In Ten. For too long, our Nation has been dependent on oil. America's dependence leaves us more vulnerable to hostile regimes, and to terrorists – who could cause huge disruptions of oil shipments, raise the price of oil, and do great harm to our economy.

America Will Reach The President's Twenty In Ten Goal By:

- Increasing The Supply Of Renewable And Alternative Fuels By Setting A Mandatory Fuels Standard To Require 35 Billion Gallons Of Renewable And Alternative Fuels In 2017 – Nearly Five Times The 2012 Target Now In Law. In 2017, this will displace 15 percent of projected annual gasoline use.

- Reforming And Modernizing Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) Standards For Cars And Extending The Current Light Truck Rule. In 2017, this will reduce projected annual gasoline use by up to 8.5 billion gallons, a further 5 percent reduction that, in combination with increasing the supply of renewable and alternative fuels, will bring the total reduction in projected annual gasoline use to 20 percent.

Got Milk? Safeway does but it doesn’t have a controversial artificial growth hormone anymore. The grocer chain said milk suppliers for the grocer’s Northwest processing plants have stopped using recombinant bovine growth hormone, or rBGH. The announcement comes shortly after Starbucks confirmed that milk products in its company-owned coffee shops in Oregon and Washington are free of rBGH. [...] In the past two years, however, major dairy names in the Northwest have stopped using the hormone. The Tillamook County Creamery Association started the trend when association’s members upheld a ban on injecting cows with the hormone in a hotly contested vote in March 2005.

The Renewable Fuels Association, the ethanol industry’s major lobbyist, works out of cramped offices that it shares with a lawyer near Capitol Hill. Pictures of ethanol plants from its 61 board members hang everywhere. “We’re about to run out of wall space,” said Bob Dinneen, the association’s president. [...] After three decades of surviving mostly on tax subsidies, the industry is poised tonight to get its biggest endorsement from on high that it has a long-term future as a home-grown alternative to gasoline.

A corn pest that can devastate yields may be increasing in prevalence across Illinois and other states because Bt crops are reducing predators that once kept the pest at bay. [...] Western bean cutworms, a major pest in Nebraska and Colorado, was first detected in Illinois in 2004 and has spread to 49 counties, according to Marlin Rice, an Extension entomologist at Iowa State. [...] “Our theory is that increased (use) of Bt cotton and YieldGard corn has suppressed (populations) of corn earworms, which are predators of western bean cutworms. This allows (more) bean cutworms to survive,” Rice said.

Five years ago, Missouri dairy farmer Leroy Shatto was struggling to stay in business. Today, his herd has more than doubled amid a surge in demand for his product. The difference: a marketing campaign touting Shatto milk as free of artificial hormones. Osborn, Missouri-based Shatto milk comes plain or flavored, but all comes from cows free of the genetically engineered hormone supplements that many conventional dairies give cows to boost their milk production. "That is what the consumers want now," said Shatto, who runs a small family farm of 220 cows. "People are demanding this stuff not to be in their milk. If I had 100 more cows tomorrow, I still couldn't keep caught up with demand."

Two groups issued contrasting reports on Thursday on the state of biotech crops, with one touting acreage growth while the other cited continued resistance by governments and consumers. The biotech industry-supported Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications (ISAAA) said that with U.S. farmers leading the way, the global area planted with genetically modified crops grew 13 percent to 252 million acres in 2006. The number of farmers planting biotech crops grew 2 percent to 10.3 million, because of substantial economic, social, environmental, and agronomic benefits, ISAAA said.

Immediately following a meeting of its seed committee, the Arkansas Plant Board unanimously voted to send new regulations aimed at purging trace amounts of a LibertyLink (LL) GM trait from the state’s rice supply to public comment. The new regulations, passed at the Plant Board’s Little Rock headquarters on Dec. 28. The latest regulations focus on rice seed in the state — including farmer-saved — and come just a week after the planting of Cheniere was banned for 2007. Thus far, Cheniere is the only variety known to contain the offending trait.

Standard weed control in glyphosate-tolerant (GT) crops has become a headache for growers in the United States. Many are wondering why glyphosate, an herbicide that has always been extremely effective, is beginning to fail them. “This is becoming a trend more so in the United States than in the rest of the world” says Ian Heap, director of the International Survey of Herbicide Resistant Weeds. “More GT crops are planted in the U.S. than anywhere else, and since it is possible to use nothing but glyphosate on these crops, many growers are doing just that.”

With no fanfare, Starbucks Coffee Co. this month began using milk products without a controversial artificial growth hormone in its home state. But the switch may drive up the cost of your caffeine habit. The company said Tuesday that it has stopped using dairy products with Recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone, or rBGH, in company-owned stores in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Alaska, Montana, Northern California and New England. The supplement, approved by the federal government more than a decade ago, is given to dairy cows during the middle phase of lactation to produce more milk.

Growing genetically engineered (GE) crops in the United States continues to stir debate, but some University of California scientists believe attention should now be focused on how farmers opposed to the technology and those in favor of it can step back from the controversy and successfully produce and market their crops in the way they personally see fit. “A debate is being fueled by the perception that there has to be a choice between either organic agriculture or genetic engineering,” said Alison Van Eenennaam, a University of California Cooperative Extension (UCCE) specialist in animal genomics and biotechnology. “This ignores the possibility that different production systems can coexist alongside each other.”