Posted on 01/21/2016 6:54:49 AM PST by TexasCajun
"Trump's candidacy, it has exposed not just that tragic, the ramifications of that betrayal of a transformation of our country, but too, he has exposed the complicity on both sides of the aisle that has enabled it, O.K.?" Palin told the crowd at her big announcement endorsing Donald Trump.
...
Still, Trump has been having a super week. Palin wasn't even the high point. That came when Iowa's six-term Republican governor, Terry Branstad, urged voters to reject Trump's main competitor, Ted Cruz.
"Ted Cruz is ahead right now. But what we're doing is, we're trying to do is educate the people of Iowa. He is the biggest opponent of renewable fuels," Branstad told a press conference.
Iowa's many, many corn farmers have always gotten lots of government aid -- the Environmental Working Group says that between 1995 and 2012, they received more than $15 billion in subsidies. On top of that, we've got the ethanol program, which requires gasoline to be mixed with biofuel, usually corn. This causes corn prices to soar and creates environmental problems due to overplanting. "A triple-layer subsidy cake," said Scott Faber of the E.W.G.
All this is the opposite of fiscal conservatism, but generally, politicians find a way to evolve on the subject when they get to Iowa. This year Cruz has hung tough. Perhaps it's because he's close to Big Oil, which wants the gas tanks for itself. But whatever the reason, he's paying the price. A pro-ethanol group, which happens to be led by the governor's son, ran a mess of ads against him. Cruz seemed to waver, then stiffened. Out charged Branstad with his warning. A popular governor's antipathy could be a big deal.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Can you pls find a link to support your claim, I can't.
One look and you just know she’s a liberal democrat. hehe
Jan 2012
A federal tax credit for ethanol expired on Saturday, ending an era in which the federal government provided more than $20 billion in subsidies for use of the product.
The tax break, created more than 30 years ago, had long seemed untouchable. But in the last year, during which Congress was preoccupied with deficits and debt, it became a symbol of corporate welfare. Fiscal conservatives joined liberal environmentalists to kill it, with help from a diverse coalition of outside groups.
The tax credit, which cost the government nearly $6 billion in 2011, went to gasoline refiners that mixed ethanol with gasoline. The government has promoted ethanol and other biofuels as a way to reduce dependence on imported oil.
Ethanol proponents eventually accepted expiration of the tax credit without putting up a big fight.
“We may be the only industry in U.S. history that voluntarily let a subsidy expire,†said Matthew A. Hartwig, a spokesman for the Renewable Fuels Association, a trade group for ethanol producers. “The marketplace has evolved. The tax incentive is less necessary now than it was just two years ago. Ethanol is 10 percent of the nation’s gasoline supply.â€
In response to a question about how the loss of the subsidy might affect prices and supply, Mr. Hartwig said: “We don’t expect the price of corn to fall or rise just because the tax incentive goes away. We will produce the same amount of ethanol in 2012 as in 2011, or more.â€
Representative Jeff Flake, Republican of Arizona, said, “With record deficits and a ballooning national debt, it was ludicrous to expect taxpayers to pay billions to prop up a mature industry that should be able to fend for itself.â€
Ethanol Subsidies: Not Gone, Just Hidden a Little Better
It turns out that corn farmers really don’t care about ethanol subsidies all that much anymore, but there’s a reason for that. Here is our own Tom Philpott writing in February 2010:
After a flirtation with reason last spring, the Obama EPA has signed off on the absurd, abysmal Renewable Fuel Standard established under Bush a couple of years ago—ensuring that farmers will continue to devote vast swaths of land to GHG-intensive corn, of which huge portion will ultimately be set aflame to power cars—but not before being transformed into liquid fuel in an energy-intensive process.
Tom’s a liberal. Here is Aaron Smith, writing a couple of days ago for the conservative American Enterprise Institute:
Deficit hawks, environmentalists, and food processors are celebrating the expiration of the ethanol tax credit. This corporate handout gave $0.45 to ethanol producers for every gallon they produced and cost taxpayers $6 billion in 2011. So why did the powerful corn ethanol lobby let it expire without an apparent fight? The answer lies in legislation known as the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), which creates government-guaranteed demand that keeps corn prices high and generates massive farm profits. Removing the tax credit but keeping the RFS is like scraping a little frosting from the ethanol-boondoggle cake.
The RFS mandates that at least 37 percent of the 2011-12 corn crop be converted to ethanol and blended with the gasoline that powers our cars…[As a result] the current price of corn on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange is about $6.50 per bushel—almost triple the pre-mandate level.
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/01/ethanol-subsidies-not-gone-just-hidden-little-better
$6 billion-a-year ethanol subsidy dies — but wait there’s more
Thursday Dec 29, 2011 11:39 AM
But there’s a nearer-term battle brewing over corn-based ethanol. A 2005 law requires that 7.5 billion gallons of renewable fuel be produced by 2012 — 6.25 billion gallons were produced in 2011. A 2007 revision gradually increases that to 36 billion gallons by 2022.
So far most of that renewable fuel has been corn-based ethanol.
The corn ethanol lobby gets a big break in Obama’s 2015 budget proposal.
The corn ethanol industry has a long history of receiving federal taxpayer subsidies. One of the biggest subsidies – the $6 billion-per-year Volumetric Ethanol Excise Tax Credit – was finally allowed to expire in 2011 after a Senate amendment to eliminate it offered by Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Tom Coburn, R-Okla., passed by a 73-27 margin. (The underlying bill ultimately failed to pass, but the amendment signaled that the days of the ethanol industry’s rule on Capitol Hill were over). So, the corn ethanol lobby pivoted to maximize taxpayer subsidies and turned to USDA to secure ethanol blender pump subsidies through the rural energy program which was originally designed to promote rural solar, wind, hydropower and geothermal projects. Congress even specifically barred corn ethanol from receiving taxpayer subsidies through it and other energy title programs in the 2008 Farm Bill. But in 2011 USDA began to allow blender pump subsidies to qualify for these payments since efforts to secure more subsidies through Congress were unsuccessful.
So it was great news that the (otherwise terrible) 2014 farm bill (officially the Agricultural Act of 2014) prevents the mature corn ethanol industry from receiving subsidies to purchase pumps dispensing higher blends of corn ethanol.
Now for the bad news. Less than a month after signing the farm bill into law, the president proposed new subsidies for ethanol blender pumps in his FY 2015 budget proposal. The overall budget was released last Tuesday, with detailed back up documents following in the last few days. Buried on page 158 of the “Analytical Perspectives†document, released Monday, is up to $200 million in new advanced energy manufacturing tax credits for the “construction of infrastructure that contributes to networks of refueling stations that serve alternative fuels,†or in other words, more subsidies for corn ethanol blender pumps and other alternative fuel infrastructure projects. Such is the power of the corn ethanol lobby.
THE HIDDEN CORN ETHANOL TAX
How Much Does the Renewable Fuel Standard
Cost Motorists?
http://www.manhattan-institute.org/pdf/ib_32.pdf
Its a Pandering Parade. Some pander for absolute power, some pander lower for a Sec of Energy gig.
We’ll see in a few days if Iowa is buying the pander. I’m betting more Iowans are concerned about America than they are about the Big Iowa Corn Fat Cats making millions.
Two bills, Senate-S.577 and House-H.R.704, aim to correct this problem. - See more at: http://www.2020action.org/2015/05/end-the-mandate-for-corn-ethanol-in-gasoline.html#sthash.U9jhEjhF.dpuf
These two bills are working their way through Congress and aim to end the ethanol mandate.
Before the “announcement” it was reported she is willing to deal for a Sec. of Energy gig.
I say let the corn lobby compete in the free market without government aid. Allow the oil companies to offer both the blended (with ethanol)and the old unblended (without ethanol) gasoline to the consumer. Then let the consumer choose what is best for him based on the pros and cons of each product not what the EPA and Agriculture department think is best for us.
There is no shortage of petroleum now ( and never has been). So why blend expensive government subsidized (that means we the taxpayers are the source of the aid) corn ethanol with the cheaper refined gasoline when the Iowa farmers could export that corn to feed the starving nations of the world and make a handsome profit on the world grain market?
Trump supports the big corn farmers and their ethanol interests. Cruz proposes another way. Cruz takes heat for offering a alternative that will benefit both the taxpayers, the corn producers, and the country’ balance of trade. But Cruz is not a businessman, so what does he know.
Folks, we are never going to improve our balance of trade by burning our corn for fuel. I know, it’s too complex for the Trump supporters to see any logic in changing this madness. Whatever Trump, being the businessman with the proven track record who is always right, says floats their boat. The country is going to hell financially creating more and more debt and Trump wants to continue supporting the ethanol subsidy program. That does not make sense to me. But that’s why I like Cruz on this issue.
Get lost did ya?
The elimination of the Ethanol Mandate is a pipe dream.
Hardly likely McConnell could out maneuver Harry Reid to get it passed.
Barack would veto if passed by Congress.
Donnie would veto is as well it appears, should he get elected.
Obama will be gone soon. The mandate will be eliminated in the next several years. Trump will “reluctantly” sign the bill. :-)
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