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South Carolina’s Clyburn Joins the Alternative Fuel Bandwagon

-- John -- 03/06/2007

On Friday of last week, Congressman James Clyburn (D-SC) spoke on a local AM radio station about global warming and the possibilities for alternative fuels like cellulosic ethanol.  According to Clyburn, “There is something taking place with climate change.  Global warming is a reality and we need to come to grips with that. It means we have to do some serious things about protecting our environment, about controlling the CO2 that is going out into the atmosphere.”  But our burning of fossil fuels also contains a national security aspect:  “We would not be bogged down in the quagmire in the Middle East were it not for oil.  So what we’ve got to do, I believe, is rid ourselves of our dependence on foreign oil.  And the only way I know for us to do that is by developing what I call ‘home grown’ and ‘American-owned’ alternatives to fossil fuels.  And I believe that is to found in the rural communities of our country.”  The Congressman then mentioned switch grass projects in Minnesota and South Dakota, and corn in Nebraska and Iowa.  In South Carolina, even more potential crops exist, including sweet potatoes, kudzu, sugar beets, soybeans, and sugar cane.  Said Clyburn:  “So there is tremendous reservoir in South Carolina, all we have to do is develop the will to get out in front of this.”  Congressman Clyburn has recently earmarked $1 million for South Carolina universities to study different crop possibilities for South Carolina.  You can hear the entire interview here.