BIOFUEL AND POLICY
Please click on the titles below for
each speaker's presentation.
“IPR, Innovation and Research Policy”
Brian Wright, UC Berkeley
The
EBI is a research collaboration of unusual scope and ambition.
Its aim is not a new product but a new industry. This public-private
partnership has the opportunity to avoid the hazards presented by such
relationships, to adopt standards of IPR management that will increase
efficiency and competitiveness of innovation, and to set the stage for
similarly promising collborations in the future.
Brian Wright is a Professor in the Department of Agricultural and
Resource Economics at the University of California, Berkeley. He
received his B. Ag. Econ. Degree in 1970 from the University of New
England, Australia, and his Ph.D. in 1976 from Harvard University. He
is a Fellow of the American Agricultural Economics Association (AAEA)
and is the recipient of the 2001 Crop Science Society of America’s
Outstanding Paper on Plant Genetic Resources Award and the 1992 AAEA
Quality of Research Discovery Award. Professor Wright’s research
interests are in the area of economics of markets for storable
commodities, economics of conservation of genetic resources,
intellectual property and rights, and insurance and risk
management. He has over 100 publications in these areas, and has
been invited to speak and present keynote addresses at numerous
conferences and workshops. He recently served on the Committee on
Intellectual Property in Genomic and Protein Research and Innovation,
the National Academies of Science, Technology and Law Programs. He
teaches graduate courses on agricultural policy and on applied
microeconomics and welfare, and an undergraduate course on economics of
intellectual property rights and innovation.
“U.S. Agriculture
in an Era of Ag and Energy Interdependence”- unavailable
Mary Bohman, ERS, U.S. Department of Agriculture
Mary Bohman is Director, Resource and Rural Economics Division at the
U. S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service. Mary
joined ERS in 1997 and has served as Deputy Director for Research for
ERS's Market and Trade Economics Division (MTED) and Chief of MTED's
Europe, Africa, Middle East Branch. Other positions held include
details to the Office of Science and Technology Policy and Under
Secretary for Farm and Foreign Agricultural Services, and faculty
member in Agricultural Sciences at the University of British Columbia
from 1990-1997. Mary received her Ph.D. from the Department of
Agricultural Economics, University of California, Davis, and her B.S.
from the School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University. Mary
is a member of the American Agricultural Economics Association, the
International Association of Agricultural Economists, and the
International Agricultural Trade Research Consortium.
“CA vs. US: Two Paths to a Biofuels
Future”
Dan Skopec, Climate and Energy Consulting (Former Deputy Cabinet
Secretary for Energy, Agriculture and Environment)
Mr.
Skopec will discuss the genesis of the Low Carbon Fuel Standard, as
introduced by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in January 2007. He
will also outline the policy issues yet to be determined in developing
the Low Carbon Fuel Standard. Finally, he will discuss the
prospects for alternative fuels policy on the federal level in 2007.
Dan Skopec was appointed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger as
Undersecretary for the California Environmental Protection Agency in
March 2006. As Undersecretary, Skopec was chief adviser to the
Secretary on all environmental issues. As former deputy cabinet
secretary for Governor Schwarzenegger, he served as the Governor’s
primary advisor on environmental and energy issues. In addition, Skopec
was responsible for overseeing policy initiatives at the state’s
environmental agencies, including the California Environmental
Protection Agency, Resources Agency, Department of Food &
Agriculture, and the California Public Utilities Commission.
Prior to joining the Schwarzenegger Administration, Skopec was Staff
Director for the Congressional Subcommittee on Energy Policy, Natural
Resources and Regulatory Affairs in Washington, D.C. As the lead
consultant on energy issues, he managed the oversight committee,
leading investigations on the California electricity crisis,
skyrocketing gasoline prices, natural gas supplies, and other issues
related to the Federal Energy Regulation Commission. Mr. Skopec
has an M.A. in International Economics from George Washington
University and a B.A. in Political Science and European History from
the University of California, San Diego. He presently operates a
climate and energy consulting business in Sacramento.
“Trade Policy
and
Bioenergy: Who Wins and How Much?”
Dan Sumner, UC Davis – Ag Issues Center
We explore
implications of the expansion of biofuels supply and demand on
California and California agriculture. With the biofuels boom of
the past two years, prices of ethanol and ethanol feed stock
jumped. California is a major user of ethanol (about 20 percent
of the total U.S. production. California is also a tiny producer
of ethanol (about 1 percent of U.S. production). Even the little
ethanol California produces mainly uses feedstock shipped in from the
Midwest. These facts mean that, California is likely to be a
major loser from higher prices for ethanol and from mandates requiring
more ethanol use. Gainers in California are those agricultural
commodity producers (and landowners) who produce crops that experience
high prices as a part of the increased demand for biofuels
feedstock. At the same time, California as a whole can be a
winner from policies that expand ethanol supply. One policy that
could expand ethanol supply in the short run and would cost taxpayers
relatively little is the relaxation of the high (almost prohibitive in
some periods) tariff on imports of ethanol. We place elimination
of the ethanol tariff in the context of the current ethanol supply and
demand situation and provide preliminary quantification of the impacts
in California. We also consider how government subsidies that
encourage consumption and production of ethanol may be viewed in the
context of WTO agreements. We note also that relaxing biofuels
trade barriers would also enhance the positive externalities with
respect to ethanol consumption and mitigate negative externalities from
consumption of fossil fuels.
Daniel A. Sumner is Director of the University of California
Agricultural Issues Center and the Frank H. Buck, Jr., Professor in the
Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, UC Davis.
Prior to returning to California in 1993, Sumner was the Assistant
Secretary for Economic at USDA and before that a senior economist at
the President’s Council of Economic Advisers. He was on the
economics faculty at North Carolina State University for a decade after
completing his Ph.D. at the University of Chicago. Sumner is from
a fruit farm in Solano County, California.
Hyunok Lee is a research economist in the Department of Agricultural
and Resource Economics at the University of California, Davis, where
she has been since 1993. Her early career was at the USDA,
including the Economic Research Service and the Office of Energy.
Her Ph.D. is from the University of Maryland. Lee is a native of
Seoul, Korea.