As I reported a few days ago, the Guardian recently uncovered what it called a "secret" World Bank assessment holding U.S. and European biofuel boosterism largely responsible for the recent run-up in global food prices. You know, the one that has pushed 50 million new people under the poverty line globally, and essentially priced tens of millions of already-poor folks out of food markets.

(The government-engineered biofuel boom has also unleashed a veritable tsunami of petrochemicals onto farmland globally -- supercharging the profits of agribiz input suppliers -- and pushed farmers onto millions of acres of ecologically sensitive land; but all of that is a topic for a different post.)

Citing unnamed sources, The Guardian suggested that the report had been squashed "to avoid embarrassing President George Bush," a fervent champion of using heroic government intervention to prop up biofuel use.

Not surprisingly, the World Bank has gone into damage-control mode. The Wall Street Journal's Environmental Capital blog got hold of Don Mitchell, the World Bank senior economist who penned the report in question. He claims it was merely a "working paper" meant to generate internal discussion, not an official Bank position paper destined for the public sphere. The Journal blog also got a quote on the affair from World Bank president Robert Zoelick, who added an interesting twist on the whole thing. He said: