Herbert Meyer, who served during the Reagan administration as Special Assistant to the Director of Central Intelligence and Vice Chairman of the CIA’s National Intelligence Council, agrees here with what I wrote here, and what Bud McFarlane wrote here.

A few excerpts:

[E]thanol and other biofuels are being blamed for everything from global warming, to increased pollution, to the sharp rise in food prices that have triggered riots in parts of Asia and Africa. …[T]he notion that ethanol production is the driving cause of rising food prices simply isn’t true. The underlying cause is the emergence of this global middle class and the inevitable glitches in supply and demand that happen along the way. …There are two additional reasons why food prices are soaring: First, the cost of oil has been skyrocketing, and as the price of oil rises, so too does the price of everything else — including food. Second, there’s a lot of market speculation going on right now. If you were wondering what those greedy imbeciles who wrecked the housing market with their sub-prime mortgage gimmicks and funds are up to these days — well, they’re speculating in commodities futures including wheat and corn. …In any case, has everyone in Washington completely forgotten what launched the biofuels industry in the first place? Apparently they have, so let’s remind ourselves what all this is really about: We import a lot of our oil, and some of the countries we buy it from don’t like us. Indeed, several of them would like to see us dead. (Killing your customers makes no sense as a business plan, but that’s the Mideast for you.) So we want to become energy independent, or at the very least we want to reduce our dependency on foreign oil. There’s a major role here for biofuels, as there are roles for nuclear power, solar power, wind power, and whatever new kind of power some American genius might invent in the coming years. It was our national, bipartisan decision to reach for energy independence that gave rise to the biofuels industry.In fact, ethanol is already reducing our dependence on foreign oil. For instance, in most states now when you stop for gas you’re pumping E-10 fuel into your tank. That’s gas comprised of 10 percent ethanol — which means we’ve already reduced our dependence on foreign oil for driving our cars by that amount. Not bad at all, for starters. …In the modern world, oil is to an economy what blood is to a body. A child’s body contains just three to four quarts of blood. An adult’s body contains five to six quarts of blood. As the world economy grows — as those tens of millions of people emerge from poverty — it requires a larger flow of energy to make their emergence from poverty possible. …Achieving energy independence is too important to let become entangled in politics or ideology.