Senator João Tenório (PSDB-AL), president of the Subcommittee on Biofuels at the Federal Senate, met the United States’ ambassador, Clifford Sobel, with his assembled cabinet, on Tuesday (24) to discuss Brazil’s strategic partnership with the U.S. aimed toward ethanol production. Senators Sibá Machado (PT-AC), the subcommittees’ vice-president, and Eduardo Azeredo (PSDB-MG), vice-president of the Committee on External Relations and National Defense (CRE), were also present at the meeting.

Tenório informed that the Brazilian parliamentarians were called by ambassador Sobel to take part in discussions with the American Congress aiming at tax elimination or reduction on Brazilian biofuels in the United States. Currently, the American government charges US$ 0,54 per gallon on alcohol imported from Brazil.

According to João Tenório, the ambassador also questioned the senators whether cultivating arable land with sugarcane, ethanol’s raw material, could harm food production, a worry which has been expressed in many parts of the world.

- After analyzing the question, it is very clear that, in 2010, when the process of new plants in Brazil is finished, sugar cane will occupy only 8.5 million hectares of land. For the purpose of comparison, the senator mentioned, grain cultivation occupies about 50 million hectares, and cattle occupies 200 million.

The meeting’s participants also discussed how to use international financial capital in order to develop, with Brazilian technology, other alcohol producing areas in the world; such as the Central America and the Caribbean.

- We do not want to create an alcohol Opep, since 90% of the countries in the world can produce biofuels from raw materials, other than sugar cane, such as beet root and corn. - Tenório stated, referring to the centralization of oil exploitation by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.

At the end of the meeting, Sobel stressed that president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, as well as United States’ president, George W. Bush, wish ethanol to become a commodity (a product that can be negotiated in stock markets), as they expressed in their recent meeting at Camp David (USA).