Early on his campaign trail in 2007, Senator Obama made a visit to Conserv Fuel to praise the LA BIodiesel Coop and myself for “making change happen from the bottom up, not the top down.” While he shared his own ambitions for biofuels if elected president, he denounced “Washington’s fumbling” on their efforts to bolster the growth of biofuels. Two years later, for a number of reasons mostly beyond Obama’s control, the biofuels business is facing dire times.
Unlike many other businesses that added to the froth of our previously overly inflated economy, the biofuels industry is actually a building block to a more sustainable economy. I sincerely hope that the Obama Administration follows through with his campaign promises and uses this economic crisis to rebuild our nation by making sustainable alternative fuels, such as biofuels, conveniently available across the USA. Now that Obama is on “top,” let’s give him the benefit of the doubt and hope that he can “make change happen” from the “top down” and be remembered as he first president to build an America’s sustainable alternative transportation infrastructure.
