Brian Mark Weber: Coddling the Corn Belt

Republican senators Grassley and Ernst pen a pro-ethanol op-ed that's downright Orwellian.

At a recent Make America Great Again rally in Iowa, President Donald Trump stirred up the crowd by announcing that his administration had lifted the ban on the year-round production of E15 gas — fuel blended with 15% ethanol. That the news was revealed in Iowa is no coincidence: The state is host to a first-in-the-nation presidential caucus and holds six electoral votes that could make all the difference in 2020’s race to 270 electoral votes.

Also cheering for the president’s decision were Iowa’s two Republican senators, Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst, who responded by writing an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal. “Biofuels are a part of everyday life in Iowa, the top corn- and ethanol-producing state in the U.S.,” the pair noted. “Ethanol supports more than 43,000 Iowa-based jobs and 350,000 jobs throughout the country, directly and indirectly. Ethanol contributed $44.4 billion to gross domestic product and $5 billion in federal tax revenue in 2017.”

So this is really about Making Iowa (and other Corn Belt states) Great Again, not America. Fair enough for two Hawkeye senators, but their ensuing dishonesty deserves to be challenged.

The Grassley-Ernst op-ed descended into frankly Orwellian terms, boasting of the “competition” brought by ethanol and lauding Trump’s move to undo an “Obama-era regulation” that “hinders consumer choice at the pump” and “deprived consumers of the ability to make their own fuel choices.” They claim that “consumer demand” should by all rights drive up the use of ethanol.

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