Free Republic

OTTUMWA, Iowa — Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump escalated his criticism of GOP rival Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.) here in Iowa Saturday, painting him as a political follower beholden to pro-oil special interests and the donor class. Trump’s strategy: to raise further questions about Cruz’s stance on ethanol— an important industry for voters in the Hawkeye State — in the final weeks before the Feb. 1 caucuses. Cruz has faced renewed scrutiny over his opposition to the 2005 Renewable Fuel Standard, which requires gasoline to be blended with amounts of corn ethanol and is set to expire in 2022. “As...

The ethanol mandate, known formally as the Renewable Fuel Standard or RFS, is an object lesson in misguided government policy surviving long after its original rationales have been destroyed. The national security rationale was that oil was scarce, but now we're the world's leading oil producer and have begun exporting crude. The environmental rationale was that ethanol would reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but since a landmark study was published in Nature in 2008 we've known: "there's little doubt that ethanol is making global warming worse." Even the jobs rationale fails. Per the Congressional Budget Office: "roughly the same amount of...

It was broadly reported yesterday that Ted Cruz had "flipped" on the question of ethanol mandates. Pretty much immediately, Cruz's critics suggested a) that this shift in position must mean that he is worried about his position in Iowa, and b) that his "steadfast conservative" claim was being exposed as a charade. I was among those who took the claim that Cruz has shifted his position at face value. The problem with that? It's not quite true. Cruz has changed his mind on ethanol in the past. But he did so in 2014, in which year he moved from supporting...

With some hasty blogging--and exacerbated by an Iowan's mistaken assertion about the ethanol mandate, Ted Cruz's shrewd answering, and the ethanol lobby's odd response--I contributed to some confusion about Ted Cruz's views on the ethanol mandate. (For the sake of candor, my original [probably misleading] post is at the bottom of this article.) Sen. Ted Cruz in 2013 co-sponsored the "Renewable Fuel Standard Repeal Act," which would immediately repeal the ethanol mandate. In 2014, he introduced a broad energy bill that would wind down the mandate over five years, slashing the federally mandated volume of renewable fuels (including corn ethanol)...

Donald Trump says that Ted Cruz has flip-flopped on the ethanol mandate, formerly wanting it abolished immediately and now wanting it abolished after a five-year phase-out. This is hardly a major change of position, but Trump is right that Cruz changed his position on ethanol in 2014 from totally ending the mandate to a gradual phase-out. But 2014 was so long ago that in 2014, Donald Trump was a liberal Democrat. If Donald Trump wants to catalog flip-flops, he should start with these: 1) Trump has said that the economy "does better under the Democrats than Republicans." 2) He has...

Can someone explain why the “party of limited government” continues, with a straight face, to support ethanol? Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa says about the heavily subsided product, “Everything about ethanol is good, good, good.” Really? Really? Really? Supporters of ethanol — which we make from corn — say it reduces our dependence on foreign oil, is cheaper and aids the environment because it burns cleaner than non-blended fossil fuels. In 1996, The New York Times wrote: “At a time when Congress has been overhauling the nation’s systems of agricultural subsidies, and public officials across the country have considered...

Can someone explain why the "party of limited government" continues, with a straight face, to support ethanol? Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa says about the heavily subsided product, "Everything about ethanol is good, good, good." Really? Really? Really? Supporters of ethanol -- which we make from corn -- say it reduces our dependence on foreign oil, is cheaper and aids the environment because it burns cleaner than non-blended fossil fuels. In 1996, The New York Times wrote: "At a time when Congress has been overhauling the nation's systems of agricultural subsidies, and public officials across the country have considered...