Posted on 01/20/2016 4:09:11 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
"...Corn has long been king in Iowa, the nation's top corn-producing state, implanting in Iowa voters a sentiment that every candidate must cheer Washington's backing for ethanol. Since 2011, though, that universal backing has been eroding.
Congress decided at the end of 2011 not to renew a tax credit that cost the government $6 billion a year. Critics of the government’s ethanol policy then set their targets on the ethanol mandate, which requires refineries to blend an increasing amount of biofuels into the U.S. gasoline supply each year.
At the ethanol summit Tuesday, Mr. Trump also read a prepared statement opposing Congress "changing any part of the RFS," or Renewable Fuel Standard, the mandate's formal name.
This year's presidential election is testing the corn industry's political power more than ever, with Republican candidates seeking to find a middle ground between repealing the mandate outright, a move supported by the party's conservative base, and phasing it out.
Mr. Cruz, who is leading in the latest polling ahead of Iowa's caucus, has sought a balance between backing a powerful political constituency and eschewing "big-government" policies the conservative base abhors.
Mr. Cruz has faced criticism from the ethanol industry primarily through America's Renewable Future, the group Mr. Branstad works for. Mr. Branstad's father, the governor, on Tuesday urged Iowa Republicans not to vote for Mr. Cruz because of his lack of support for the ethanol mandate...."
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.wsj.com ...
Artificially high corn prices due to ethanol production has caused beef and other meat prices to go sky high. Also cereals and many other foods are way up. For the hunters, deer corn more than doubled in the last couple of years. This is insanity. Trump has really lost me on this one. I wont even start on several small engines I had ruined by this crap.
We should follow a crony-capitalist policy? Status quo?
I hate ethanol, good thing I drive a diesel truck. No catalytic converter, no urea, no dpf, no egr, all from the factory. Now if we could only get rid of the ultra low sulfur diesel that destroys injectors and pumps!
makes so much sense to burn our food supply while decreasing the mileage our cars get while increasing the amount of pollution in the atmosphere, and increase the wear and tear on the engines those cars use. And while we are at why not just destroy small, air-cooled engines for lawn mowers, chainsaws and the like? That’ll really stimulate the economy because people will have to buy more of them to replace the destroyed ones!””
It isn’t your food supply unless you are producing it. It belongs to the farmers that work to make it happen. The big three killers are alcohol, tobacco, and obesity. Obesity is the #1 health issue. You don’t need more food. Car mileage is better than ever, cars last longer, and the additives replacing ETOh are worse polluters. Stop converting food to ingestible ETOH, right?
Cruz is from an oil state. He represents their interests and they hate ETOH. Both candidates are fine.
And Palin’s stand on this???
“And while we are at why not just destroy small, air-cooled engines for lawn mowers, chainsaws and the like? “
Or you can buy straight unleaded, non-alcohol bearing fuel for these engines. Works great, and you can leave it in those tools for a year or more w/o any stabilizer. Several suppliers have it at retail for non-vehicluar use.
You didn't hear it from, that's for sure. Increasing supply yields lower prices and lower prices lead to food price deflation.
Global food stocks are currently at a 30 year high and some people are warning that food deflation is imminent.
An example of this food deflation occurred in 2012 in Europe. European farmers were literally pouring milk into the gutter because it wasn't profitable to sell the milk at the market price.
Agree. At the time we were in a position that required some action to reduce dependence on imported oil. The subsidy was less than 0.1% of budget. There was nothing wrong with burning captured sunlight. I know the oil industry doesn’t like it.
Trump and Cruz are both good men. People need to stop attacking our own. BO is the enemy.
The problem is that Trump agrees with congress.
Trump MORE than “agrees” with Congress, Trump wants higher ethanol blends.
We produce so much food that if we didn’t find uses for it other than eating it, agricultural commodity prices would collapse and producing food would no longer be a profitable endeavor. It raises the price of food and gasoline but the trade off is a stable and abundant food supply and happy prosperous farmers.””
Thank you. U.S. Modern Ag is the best in the world. Sadly people don’t realize it.
Embedded in the data are a 7 percent drop in cereals, an 8.6 percent decline in vegetable oil and a 9.1 percent slump in dairy prices. And while cheap food is a godsend to consumers, especially in poorer nations, it’s a disaster for those countries that depend upon selling foodstuffs for income.
It's also bad news for central banks concerned that slumping prices may lead to deflation, defined as a sustained period of falling consumer prices.
Are you a “global warming” believer?
The subsidy ended in 2011. Have you paid attention to gas prices lately?
Ah yeah, trump is the enemy, not Barack Hussein Obama, Lynch, and the rest of his African and middle eastern tribe running the country to hell.
“It isn’t your food supply unless you are producing it.”
As far as I know corn is food for human beings and certain farm animals.
“It belongs to the farmers that work to make it happen.”
They don’t go to the trouble of planting and harvesting corn just to watch it grow. Their goal is to sell it.
“The big three killers are alcohol, tobacco, and obesity. Obesity is the #1 health issue. You don’t need more food.”
You must be a FR Leftist because what you said right there is what they are always harping on. Americans certainly don’t need food, but there are plenty of nations who would like to buy it for use as food.
“Car mileage is better than ever, cars last longer, and the additives replacing ETOh are worse polluters.”
If you take the ethanol out of gasoline you’ll get an increase of about 4 mpg. This is because ethanol has about 2/3rds of the energy that gasoline does. If you increase the amount gasoline per mile traveled you end up increasing pollution.
So gas is the cheapest ever in real dollars, and food in the U.S. In the top 3 in the world for value. Please, we speak the truth here.
Yes. the spot I am now sitting at was covered by a sheet of ice a mile thick 10,000 years ago. Now there’s a great lake in its place... because the globe warmed and the glacier melted and receded and left all that wonderful water behind. Now ask me if I believe in man made global warming.
Have you taken to throwing dishes yet?
We need to “repurpose” ethanol.
Stop putting it in our gas and start putting it into every murdering rapist country. Black market so much of it that they are all falling-down-drunk all the time and become hopelessly addicted to it...then start legitimately importing it....then raise the price.
That way, the farmers can keep production up and we can solve the terrorism problem by weaponizing ethanol.
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