Chicago Debate League 2013/14 Core Files
AC: Cuban Ethanol Affirmative 117
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- 1AC: Cuban Ethanol Affirmative 118
- 1AC: Cuban Ethanol Affirmative 119
- 1AC: Cuban Ethanol Affirmative 120
1AC: Cuban Ethanol Affirmative 1174) Agriculture is America’s strongest export, and stability is key to economic recovery because of the sector’s job-creating potential across multiple industries. STABENOW, 12 [Debbie, U.S. Senator from Michigan; “The Farm Bill is a Jobs Bill,” http://www.stabenow.senate.gov/files/documents/fb-jobs.pdf] Agriculture represents a bright spot in the U.S. economy and is underpinning the nation’s economic recovery. Failure to pass a Farm Bill before the current bill expires in September would send waves of job-killing uncertainty through a sector critical to our economic recovery. American agriculture supports 16 million American jobs. Agriculture is one of the only sectors of the U.S. economy that boasts a trade surplus totaling $42.5 billion in 2011, the highest annual surplus on record. Exports totaled $136 billion in 2011 – a 270 percent increase from 2000. Every $1 billion in agricultural exports represents approximately 8,400 American jobs. Agriculture supports jobs in rural and urban areas alike, creating not just farm but also equipment manufacturing, bio-based manufacturing, food and fiber processing, bio-energy production, retail, and many other forms of jobs in every corner of the country. 1AC: Cuban Ethanol Affirmative 1185) Economic collapse causes cutbacks in necessary defense spending and global nuclear war. FRIEDBERG AND SCHOENFELD, 8 [Aaron, professor of politics and international relations at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School, and Gabriel, senior editor of Commentary, is a visiting scholar at the Witherspoon Institute in Princeton, N.J.; “The Dangers of a Diminished America,” Wall Street Journal, 10/28, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122455074012352571.html?mod=googlenews_wsj] One immediate implication of the crisis that began on Wall Street and spread across the world is that the primary instruments of U.S. foreign policy will be crimped. The next president will face an entirely new and adverse fiscal position. Estimates of this year's federal budget deficit already show that it has jumped $237 billion from last year, to $407 billion. With families and businesses hurting, there will be calls for various and expensive domestic relief programs. In the face of this onrushing river of red ink, both Barack Obama and John McCain have been reluctant to lay out what portions of their programmatic wish list they might defer or delete. Only Joe Biden has suggested a possible reduction -- foreign aid. This would be one of the few popular cuts, but in budgetary terms it is a mere grain of sand. Still, Sen. Biden's comment hints at where we may be headed: toward a major reduction in America's world role, and perhaps even a new era of financially-induced isolationism. Pressures to cut defense spending, and to dodge the cost of waging two wars, already intense before this crisis, are likely to mount. Despite the success of the surge, the war in Iraq remains deeply unpopular. Precipitous withdrawal -- attractive to a sizable swath of the electorate before the financial implosion -- might well become even more popular with annual war bills running in the hundreds of billions. Protectionist sentiments are sure to grow stronger as jobs disappear in the coming slowdown. Even before our current woes, calls to save jobs by restricting imports had begun to gather support among many Democrats and some Republicans. In a prolonged recession, gale-force winds of protectionism will blow. Then there are the dolorous consequences of a potential collapse of the world's financial architecture. For decades now, Americans have enjoyed the advantages of being at the center of that system. The worldwide use of the dollar, and the stability of our economy, among other things, made it easier for us to run huge budget deficits, as we counted on foreigners to pick up the tab by buying dollar-denominated assets as a safe haven. Will this be possible in the future? Meanwhile, traditional foreign-policy challenges are multiplying. The threat from al Qaeda and Islamic terrorist affiliates has not been extinguished. Iran and North Korea are continuing on their bellicose paths, while Pakistan and Afghanistan are progressing smartly down the road to chaos. Russia's new militancy and China's seemingly relentless rise also give cause for concern. If America now tries to pull back from the world stage, it will leave a dangerous power vacuum. The stabilizing effects of our presence in Asia, our continuing commitment to Europe, and our position as defender of last resort for Middle East energy sources and supply lines could all be placed at risk. In such a scenario there are shades of the 1930s, when global trade and finance ground nearly to a halt, the peaceful democracies failed to cooperate, and aggressive powers led by the remorseless fanatics who rose up on the crest of economic disaster exploited their divisions. Today we run the risk that rogue states may choose to become ever more reckless with their nuclear toys, just at our moment of maximum vulnerability. 1AC: Cuban Ethanol Affirmative 119Thus, we present the following PLAN: The United States federal government should substantially increase its economic engagement toward Cuba by fully legalizing the importation of sugar-based ethanol from Cuba into the United States. 1AC: Cuban Ethanol Affirmative 120Contention Four is Solvency: Ending the embargo on Cuban sugar-cane ethanol will establish a market that allows the industry to sustain itself. 1) U.S. support for Cuban sugarcane ethanol is the most effective way to combat global warming because it creates a biofuel market that solves global oil dependence. SPECHT, 12 [Jonathan, Legal Advisor for Pearlmaker Holsteins, Inc. B; J.D., Washington University in St. Louis; “Raising Cane: Cuban Sugarcane Ethanol’s Economic and Environmental Effects on the United States,” 4/24, http://environs.law.ucdavis.edu/issues/36/2/specht.pdf] While it is currently impossible to blame any single climatological event on climate change, even one as large as a major regional drought, scientists have long predicted that such droughts as the Midwest experienced in 2012 are the type of events that will result from climate change. 192 Adding to the already overwhelming evidence that climate change is occurring (and should no longer be a matter of debate), 193 July 2012 was the hottest month the United States has experienced in 118 years of meteorological records. 194 The key to halting (or at least slowing) climate change will be to keep as large an amount as is possible of the carbon stored in fossil fuels — coal, oil, and natural gas — in the ground and out of the atmosphere. 195 By providing an alternative to petroleum, biofuels can help to reduce oil consumption and therefore aid in the extremely important challenge of keeping carbon underground. As the United States faces the twin challenges of climate change and peak oil, biofuels must be a part of the solution. However, it is imperative that policies promoting biofuels are capable of accomplishing the United States’ environmental and energy goals. Neither a wholesale abandonment of federal involvement in the development of biofuels nor a continuation of the corn-centric status quo is an acceptable way forward. The development of a Cuban sugarcane-based ethanol industry is part of a potential solution. Whether the former incentives for the domestic ethanol that expired at the end of 2011 will be revived by a future Farm Bill remains to be seen. Even if they are not, as long as the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba continues there will be little chance of that country making a substantial investment in the development of an entire new industry. It is understandable, for face-saving reasons, that United States policy-makers would not consider ending the decades-long trade embargo against Cuba as long as Fidel Castro remains alive. 196 But, as soon as possible after a governmental transition begins in Cuba, United States policy-makers should consider taking steps to encourage the creation of such an industry. 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