Bush on Biofuel in Brazil - page 2 of 3

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Biofuels provide a cleaner and economically viable alternative. Technology is our major ally in this undertaking. The gains with the use of biofuel in Brazil are already clear in the development of new technologies in the creation of a cleaner energy blend.

President Bush, we have more than tripled the yields of sugarcane plantations, which are the main source of ethanol. And we have demonstrated that it is possible to increase the production of biofuels without harming the production of food, and also reducing deforestation of the Amazon region.

Most of the automobiles sent today in Brazil are flex-fuel. This is a technology we developed here, and which has made ethanol a safe and reliable fuel. I am calling on Brazilian industry to do the same with biodiesel. Our car and truck builders should get ready because we need to move on biodiesel.

I am convinced, President Bush, that the United States, with its great technological and entrepreneurial capacities, will be an extraordinary partner in this undertaking. Your visit to Brazil today, and our tour around Petrobras, and the conversations we will still be having over lunch may well mean a strategic alliance that will allow us to convince the world that everyone can change the energy blend. After all, we, as I just said, who have polluted the world so much in the 20th century, need to make our contribution to de-polluting it in the 21st century. We, after all, are responsible, and we want our children and our grandchildren to be able to live in a world that is less polluted than the one we live in today.

In addition to doing the good for humanity with biofuels, we will also be, for the first time, using biofuels as a way to distribute income and create jobs in an unprecedented scale in the history of humanity. Above all, if we analyze what can be done for countries in Africa, if we analyze what to do in poorer countries of South America, and when we look at what we can do in Central America and the Caribbean, where the United States has a partnership with all those countries, and I believe that that partnership between the U.S. and Brazil can, beginning today, really be a new moment for the global car industry, a new moment for fuel, in general, in the world, and possibly a new moment for humanity.

Therefore, thank you very much for your visit. (Applause.)

PRESIDENT BUSH: Bom dia. Thank you for your hospitality, Mr. President. It's good to be back in your beautiful country. Laura and I really have been looking forward to the trip to Sao Paulo. It's one of those great cities. And I have been looking forward to our conversations. You know, Brazil and the United States are the two largest democracies in our hemisphere, and we've got a lot in common, and we've got a lot to do together to improve the lives of millions in our respective countries, and hopefully in neighboring countries, as well.

I find it really interesting that much of our talks on this visit are going to be centered on energy. It's a new kind of energy. I don't think 20 years ago, an American President, or a Brazilian President, would have thought, let's see, see if we can find common ground on energy production. And yet, as the President noted, that we had a long discussion in Brasilia about alternative fuels. And now we're at a plant that's actually manufacturing alternative fuels on an economic basis that has got the capacity to change our respective countries in the world. And I, like the President, am very upbeat about the potential of ethanol and biodiesel. And that's why we're here.

I do want to thank Sergio Gabrieli, who is the President of Petrobras, for his hospitality. I appreciate very much your briefing. And I want to thank all the workers here for greeting us. I want to thank the folks from Ford and General Motors who are here. It's nice of them to show up to see the American President. I appreciate your willingness to be innovative and to meet market demands with products that actually matter, and in this case, flex-fuel vehicles.

People have wondered why the President of the United States would be so interested in diversification of our energy supply, and here are the reasons. One, if you're dependent upon oil from overseas you have a national security issue. In other words, dependency upon energy from somewhere else means that you're dependent upon the decisions from somewhere else. And so as we diversify away from the use of gasoline by using ethanol we're really diversifying away from oil.

Secondly, dependency upon oil creates an economic problem for not only the United States, but anybody else who imports oil. In a globalized world, if the demand for oil goes up in China or India, it runs up the price of gasoline in our respective countries. And therefore, diversification away from oil product is in the economic interests of our respective countries.

And finally, as the President noted, it is - we all feel incumbent to be good stewards of the environment. It just so happens that ethanol and biodiesel will help improve the quality of the environment in our respective countries.

And so I'm very much in favor of promoting the technologies that will enable ethanol and biodiesel to remain competitive, and therefore, affordable to the people in our respective countries and around our neighborhoods.

One of the things I like, as the President noted, is that a good ethanol policy and good alternative fuel policy actually leads to more jobs, not less. In other words, at this plant there are jobs. But as the President noted, when you're growing your way out of dependence on oil, you're dependent upon people who work the land, and the distribution of wealth, the distribution of opportunity to farmers, particularly the smaller farmers in our respective countries, will enable the economy to be more on firm foundation.

And so, Mr. President, your vision is absolutely correct. I appreciate so very much the fact that much of your energy is driven by sugarcane. It, frankly, gives Brazil a tremendous advantage in the world markets. Sugarcane is by far the most efficient raw material for the production of ethanol. The President has wisely invested in technologies that will increase your yields per acre, and that makes a lot of sense. In America, we've got a little different issue - we don't have a lot of sugarcane. And so our stock material, our base material for ethanol thus far has been corn.

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