01/26/05 No tariffs for now; Measure on measure

For now the U.S. will not face retaliatory tariffs from the European Union over the issue of corporate tax breaks for American exporters. The E.U. agreed Friday to end sanctions on $4 billion dollars in U.S. goods, sanctions granted by the World Trade Organization that had been in effect since last March. However, the E.U. reserved the right to re-impose up to sixty per cent of the original tariffs if a dispute over the amount of time the U.S. companies can transition from the original tax break to a new W.T.O. legal tax break was not resolved. The E.U. had protested the J.O.B.S. bill passed by Congress last fall to repeal the corporate tax break, saying it allowed American companies to transition too long. Oregon's state government and property owners have had just a little less than a month to adjust to voter approved Measure 37. On the surface, the measure was designed to provide property owners with expanded rights to compensation. But now a coalition of Oregon farmers, county Farm Bureaus, and a land-use watchdog organization have filed suit challenging Measure 37's constitutionality. The group, 1000 Friends of Oregon, say in their suit filed in Marion County Superior Court that Measure 37 creates inequality among Oregon property owners by giving special rights to some land owners based on when they bought their land. Now with today's "Food Forethought", here's Susan Allen. ALLEN: Gentlemen start your engines. Believe it or not there are some similarities if you said that phrase to singer Neil Young or Indy racer Paul Dana, for both believe what fuels their vehicles should be grown by American farmers. Neil Young, one of the founders of the annual Farm Aid charity concerts travels the country on busses run with vegetable oil grown on American farms. Ethanol fuels something much smaller, but oh so much hotter for Paul Dana, who drives for the Indy Racing League's Infiniti pro-series. When Dana isn't racing he is busy promoting ethanol within his racing league and to farmers and consumers. He says the ability to blend petroleum and ethanol is no longer pie in the sky and urges everyone he meets to move to the next generation of fuel technology. Both Young and Dana promote the fact that green fuel not only will reduce emissions but will diminish our dependency on foreign oil while creating more jobs in a sector near and dear to both of them, rural America . Soon we could all be saying fill er up with corn oil. This is Susan Allen with Today's Food Forethought.