Wednesday was a difficult day for The American Independent News Network, which is the larger entity that operates The Iowa Independent. Our chief executive and founder announced two of our sister sites would close and their content would be moved to The American Independent.
A recently introduced bill could have far-reaching impact on the U.S. sugar industry, including American Crystal Sugar, a farmer-owned cooperative that locked out 1,300 Midwest workers on Aug. 1.
The chairman for Herman Cain’s Iowa effort says the campaign “relied more on the word of farmers than Washington regulators” in deciding to run an ad containing claims the Environmental Protection Agency says are false.
The Iowa Senate will remain under the control of a slim 26-25 Democratic majority when it reconvenes in January 2012.
Opponents of ethanol are seeking to exploit an opportunity to relax the federal renewable fuels standard, but drew a strong reaction from Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley on Tuesday.
A request for a waiver from the renewable fuels standard (RFS) is gaining support, just as Midwest farmers struggle to pick up the pieces following months of devastating weather. Fears of a less-than-adequate crop this year have driven corn prices to record levels this spring, and many are blaming the ethanol industry for gobbling up too much corn.
On Monday, Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., the ranking Republican on the House Agriculture Committee, joined in support of an effort to relax the standard. Goodlatte and 50 House Republicans signed a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency in support of the waiver.
Earlier this spring, Texas Gov. Rick Perry initiated the call for a rollback of mandated renewable fuels usage. Perry submitted to the EPA a request for a waiver seeking a 50 percent reduction in the renewable fuels standard in his state.
Federal law mandates that ethanol be blended into the fuel supply, but it allows the EPA to grant waivers in certain circumstances. Other states have followed Perry's lead, and the drive to relax the RFS has won the support of 23 Republican senators — including presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain.
In a conference call with agriculture reporters Tuesday, the Republican Grassley said relaxing the renewable fuels standard would be a bad idea.
"Absolutely not," said Grassley when asked if he would support the waiver request. "The whole idea behind a mandate is to encourage investment, because for 30 years everybody's been saying we need alternative energy. We have an industry now, why would anybody want to destroy or discourage the industry? And besides, these efforts are all part of the Grocery Manufacturers Association to scapegoat ethanol in order to increase the price of food."
And the price of fuel would be higher if it weren't for ethanol, he said. Grassley noted a recent Iowa State University study that showed that ethanol production has resulted in gasoline prices staying more than 30 cents cheaper per gallon than they would be without ethanol in the market.
Grassley said the members of the Grocery Manufacturers Association are behind a full-scale campaign to discredit ethanol, "to protect their bottom line."
"It's intellectually dishonest, it's economically not factual, it doesn't parallel with common sense, and we've just got to discourage members of Congress that are sucked in by the Grocery Manufacturers Association to go in this direction," said Grassley. "It is an effort to help grocery manufacturers increase the price of food, and it's led by Kraft and General Mills,and no member of Congress should be a tool of these industries."
Iowa's other senator, Democrat Tom Harkin, has stated that the Texas RFS waiver request is "without merit."
Others are also rallying to ethanol's defense, including the powerful American Farm Bureau Federation. In a June 19 letter to EPA administrator Stephen Johnson, the Farm Bureau sternly called for the Texas RFS waiver request to be denied:
“The RFS is part of the fuel for economic growth and any evaluation of a waiver request must consider not only the impacts of the waiver on Texas — alleged impacts that we dispute — but also the negative impacts on jobs that would be created by a waiver.”
According to the Farm Bureau, increased corn prices are caused by numerous factors, including record export demand caused by a weak dollar, record domestic feed use, speculation in commodities markets, and dramatic price increases for crude oil and energy.
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