Congress torpedoes Navy, Pentagon agro-fuel plans

Both houses have approved legislation that blocks the Navy from buying agro-fuels — petroleum substitutes derived from plants, typically grown on industrial Third World plantations — unless they cost no more than conventional fuels.

Their action also bars the Pentagon from funding agro-fuel refineries, a major blow to the Obama administration embrace of plant-based fuels, driven largely by Energy Secretary Steve Chu.

It was Chu who, during his tenure as head of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, played a leading role in winning UC Berkeley that $500 million BP agro-fuel research grant and shifted research at the Department of Energy lab toward agro-fuel research.

The Pentagon’s agro-fuel efforts were initially shaped by Air Force Gen. Charles Wald, the same general also responsible for drafting plans for Africom, the Pentagon’s command for controlling the continent which has seen an ongoing wave of land acquisitions by agro-fuel corporations.