GoodFuels

McCain in Ethanol Country

Republican presidential candidate John McCain repeatedly called his audience at the Iowa State Fair on Friday “my friends” but his stand on ethanol and farm policy are not very friendly to farmers in this part of the country.

Give the man credit for having the guts to stand up in the middle of the country’s largest ethanol producing state, beside the Iowa commissioner of agriculture (and past corn growers president) and the Iowa Farm Bureau president and tell them he disagreed with them about ethanol support.

“I believe in renewable fuels,” McCain said. “I don’t believe in ethanol subsidies, but I believe in renewable fuels. I believe we have to do all of those things to restore our economy.”

Some will say you can’t have it both ways. McCain’s “Lexington Project” plan for energy independence relies mainly on domestic oil exploration and natural gas. However, the plan does include calling on car makers to made ” a more rapid and complete switch to FFVs” as well as increasing development of cellulosic ethanol.

Very clearly, he would like to eliminate all “mandates, subsidies, tariffs and price supports that focus exclusively on corn-based ethanol and prevent the development of market-based solutions which would provide us with better options for our fuel needs.”

According to this AP article, McCain recently came out strongly against all farm programs. “I don’t support agricultural subsidies no matter where they are,” McCain said at a recent appearance in Wisconsin. “The farm bill, $300 billion, is something America simply can’t afford.”

Other Republicans are a little concerned about McCain’s views.

“I would not advise him to take that position,” Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) is quoted as saying in the same article. “For sure, he can’t lose Missouri and that’s in the upper Midwest. Could he lose Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin and still be elected president? Yes, but I wouldn’t advise him to have that strategy.”

It’s very important to stress that farm policy is not just for Midwestern farmers. It is for all of America. Of the $307 billion in spending authorized by the bill through 2012, $209 billion is for nutrition programs and $25 billion is for conservation. Just $35 billion - about 10 percent of the total - goes to agricultural commodity programs, including research and market promotion, not just direct payments. I would contend, as would many, that America can’t afford NOT to have farm policy that helps farmers stay in business and feeds the hungry of this country and the world.