Natural Resources committee  Shall I take a first crack at that on the investment side? As I mentioned, there are over 100 ethanol plants in the U.S. operating today, and 30 more in construction. In the biodiesel industry you have about a dozen large plants in the U.S. being constructed, and we have two that were recently opened in Canada.

Natural Resources committee  I'll maybe take a stab at the agricultural component, just with a couple of quick words on the price issue. Having open borders is going to be key to getting competitive prices. We're having a market for ethanol develop in North America with very transparent pricing. It's traded like other commodities on the Chicago Board of Trade.

Natural Resources committee  I'll give you a quick answer as to what I see as the difference between the two. And I think CPPI may have a slightly different perspective on some of this. It's a much newer product in the North American context, so I think for that reason there are more questions being raised by users, be they truckers or others, who aren't as familiar with it as they are in the European market, where biodiesel has been a much larger part of the fuel mix for a longer time.

Natural Resources committee  Mr. Chairman, honourable members, thank you for inviting the Canadian Renewable Fuels Association to appear before you today. The CRFA is a non-profit organization with a mission to promote renewable transportation fuels through consumer awareness and government liaison activities.

Agriculture committee  I'll give you three really quick answers. Yes, on the 10% for ethanol. For biodiesel, it's up to 100% in a diesel engine, although blending standards only exist for up to 5% today--although many people are blending far more than that. In terms of the energy balance, how much fuel you're using, on a life cycle basis based on Agriculture Canada's most recent analysis, it's 2:1 net energy out of ethanol versus use in the growing of the crop, gas for the tractor, and all of that.

Agriculture committee  There is no time like the present. I actually think that the timelines agreed to on May 23 in Regina by federal ministers and provincial ministers responsible for our industry are a pretty good plan. They actually had a pretty good plan, a pretty aggressive plan and timeline for getting this done, basically by consulting with industry and governments over the course of the summer, with some sort of agreement on how to proceed in early fall.

Agriculture committee  We're working very closely with the Ontario government right now on looking at these issues. There are certain types of tanks. To give you an idea of the magnitude, there may be 30 to 40 in all of Ontario, which would have north of...3,000 or 4,000 tanks. So a very tiny percentage of tanks will have some softening as a result of ethanol being added.

Agriculture committee  Not if we continue to drive the types of vehicles we drive today. Renewable fuels are not a solution to anything in isolation. Unless you're able to convince people that they don't need a four-wheel drive truck to drive their kids to soccer practice and you address things like fuel efficiency simultaneously, you're not going to have a sole solution.

Agriculture committee  I would love to talk at length about the environmental benefits. Because this is the agriculture committee, we focus more on the benefits to producers. But you're right, sustainable development is a big part of this story, and GHG reductions are a big part of the story. I'll let Bliss answer the corn portion of the question, but I would encourage anyone who's in town on Thursday and interested in that part of our story on the sustainable development side to attend when we're hosting a breakfast speaker.

Agriculture committee  It depends on the local growing region. There's an interesting case right now on tobacco lands around Lake Erie. They're looking at using a combination of sweet potatoes and millet as feedstock for ethanol. It really depends on your local growing conditions. This industry looks very different all around the world.

Agriculture committee  Just to add another element to that, though I know it's a little bit beyond your question, the selling price for ethanol right now is at record highs. That's because it doesn't just track the price of inputs; the market is also affected by what the price for gasoline is. When you have refining shortages, as we experienced last year as a result of hurricanes in the gulf, there's pressure on the refining system even above what is naturally there.

Agriculture committee  One of our members, who isn't present here, Okanagan Biofuels, based in Kelowna, is looking at biodigesting in distiller grains. There are numerous technologies and different things that are going on in that. Having the flexibility to do some wet, do some dry, having more options, is only going to help your business case.

Agriculture committee  We will report to several ministers, not only to Minister Strahl but also to Minister Ambrose and Minister Lunn, who are playing very important roles in developing what this process is. The actual regulation itself is likely to be part of Minister Ambrose's work, and primary agricultural producer involvement is something I know Minister Strahl is very focused on.

Agriculture committee  I'd like to hear what Lionel has to say on this as well, but on the point of dumping, there was an accusation that there was dumping in the Canadian market. There was a trade challenge brought forward to the CITT, and the CITT found there was an injury. So there are mechanisms in place, if someone is using an illegal trade practice, to challenge that.

Agriculture committee  On the second part of that question, I think there's sometimes a temptation for policy-makers to try to cheat the system, so to speak, in terms of getting a policy outcome they want. If you were to put feedstock restrictions on where you could buy commodities, taking any of the liquidity out of the corn market by saying that no American corn or corn from other places could cross the border, you would artificially inflate the price of corn in Canada.