Free Republic

Des Moines — Only weeks after taking this key state in the presidential race by surprise, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker defended his front-runner status in Iowa by pledging to support a federal ethanol mandate, shifting his position on renewable fuels at a Republican roundup on farm issues. The GOP governor and a lineup of other major potential presidential contenders — including former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush — took the stage before hundreds of spectators and media at the Iowa Ag Summit at the state fairgrounds here. In the moderated discussion with ethanol entrepreneur Bruce Rastetter, Walker dropped his previous flat...

Senator Ted Cruz (R., Texas) managed to turn a disagreement with a crowd of Iowa businesses and farmers into an applause line at the Iowa Agriculture Summit. Cruz reiterated his opposition to the Renewable Fuels Standard, a popular policy in Iowa that presents a thorny problem for many Republicans who campaign against crony capitalism but want to win the GOP presidential nomination. “I recognize that this is a gathering of a lot of folks where the answer you’d like me to give is ‘I’m for the RFS, darnit;’ that’d be the easy thing to do,” he said. “But I’ll tell...

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...

Des Moines—Only weeks after taking this key state in the presidential race by surprise, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker returns to Iowa Saturday to defend his front-runner status at a major Republican event focused on 2016 and agricutural issues.The GOP governor and a line-up of other major White House contenders—including former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush—will take the stage at the Iowa Ag Summit on Saturday at the state fairgrounds here.A key point to watch will be whether Walker, an early favorite among conservatives for 2016, will stick to his past opposition to government intervention to aid the ethanol industry or moderate...

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...

Fires at the site of an eastern Iowa freight train derailment are out but ethanol is leaking into the Mississippi River and the task turned to monitoring for environmental impact and offloading the fuel from derailed trains to empty cars. The cars went off the tracks at 11:20 a.m. Wednesday in a remote area about 10 miles north of Dubuque. Local authorities say three cars caught fire.....

A study paid for by the Michigan Corn Growers Association was recently reported in the news media as though it had been conducted independently. This public relations coup for the ethanol industry was pulled off by touting it as “a Michigan State University study” and omitting the fact that it was done on behalf of the Michigan Corn Growers Association. Reporters then assumed it was an academic study conducted independently of the ethanol industry. On Dec. 17, Michigan Capitol Confidential asked MSU spokesman Jason Cody if the study “Greenhouse Gas Reduction in Michigan Due to Ethanol Fuel Use,” was an...

As he prepares for frequent trips to Iowa to explore a presidential bid, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker will be pushed to champion ethanol — an issue he has in large part avoided. Walker has dodged stating his views on the Renewable Fuel Standard, a federal program that requires transportation fuel sold in the United States to contain a minimum volume of renewable fuel, which in practice is usually ethanol made from corn. The GOP governor has declined to take a position, saying last year he wanted to strike a "careful balance" on the issue that — when higher amounts of...

A study paid for by the Michigan Corn Growers Association was recently reported in the news media as though it had been conducted independently. This public relations coup for the ethanol industry was pulled off by touting it as “a Michigan State University study” and omitting the fact that it was done on behalf of the Michigan Corn Growers Association. Reporters then assumed it was an academic study conducted independently of the ethanol industry. On Dec. 17, Michigan Capitol Confidential asked MSU spokesman Jason Cody if the study “Greenhouse Gas Reduction in Michigan Due to Ethanol Fuel Use,” was an...

Few congressional observers ever expected that U.S. Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Pat Toomey (R-PA) would cosponsor the “Corn Ethanol Mandate Elimination Act,” to abolish the corn ethanol Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), which requires that increasing volumes of this biofuel be blended into gasoline. Their collaboration again proves the adage that politics often makes strange bedfellows. The RFS was a mistake when enacted ten years ago. Since then, despite attempts to curtail it, the program has expanded and had more lives than Freddy Krueger. Perhaps the senators are now paraphrasing William Shakespeare and Marc Antony, saying “I come to bury...

Just days after Iowa Governor Terry Brandstad kicked off a campaign to promote the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) as a “candidate” in the 2016 presidential race, it was basically a no-show at the conservative Freedom Summit featuring many presidential hopefuls. Asked about the RFS in an interview with the Des Moines Register on Friday, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas said he would continue his opposition to the law as “a matter of principle.” One of the potential candidates who received some positive reviews at the summit was Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, who was recently criticized by biofuels producers in his...

Renewable-fuels advocates are promising to spend millions putting ethanol back in the debate for Iowa’s first-in-the-nation caucus next year as cheap oil and setbacks in biofuels policy make the additive less central to voters. Iowa Governor Terry Branstad, backed by state corn-grower and renewable-fuels associations and the Washington-based biofuels lobby Growth Energy, on Thursday formed America’s Renewable Future, to make the Renewable Fuels Standard an issue in the 2016 race. The Iowa caucus is set for early January. “We are designing it to look like a presidential campaign, but the RFS is our candidate,” said Eric Branstad, the governor’s son...

The fiscal impact of the ethanol mandate is huge — Michaels estimated it totals “billions, easily” in direct and indirect money — but it has come under attack by liberals as well as conservatives and appears to have lost some of its clout on Capitol Hill. For example, the Environmental Protection Agency — which administers the Renewable Fuel Standard — is considering a cut to the amount of ethanol blended into the nation’s gasoline supply. ... a growing number of environmentalists want the ethanol requirement eliminated, too. ... In 2007, Congress passed and President George W. Bush signed into law...

A new study released from Michigan State University found substantial reductions in greenhouse gas emissions due to ethanol fuel use in Michigan. To reach this conclusion, however, the study’s authors simply and admittedly decided not to take into account the number one reason critics of ethanol fuel use argue that it is bad for the environment. Justification for the study leaving out what may be the most significant negative aspect of ethanol fuel use is partially explained in a statement offered by MSU spokesman Jason Cody. “The study was not directly about whether ethanol is good for the environment,” Cody...

Using the tools of paleogenetics, scientists have recently traced the evolutionary history of an enzyme that helps us metabolize ethanol, the principal type of alcohol found in adult beverages. Scientists believe early human ancestors evolved their ethanol-digesting ability about 10 million years ago to fortify their diet as they shifted from a tree-based lifestyle to a more ground-based lifestyle... To help narrow that range, researchers studied the genetic evolution of alcohol-metabolizing enzyme ADH4, which has been present in primates, in one form or another, for at least 70 million years. Using genetic sequences from 28 different mammals, including 17 primates,...

[ Secondary blog source: Tyler Durden / The Zero Hedge / www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-12-24/we-live-new-world-and-saudis-are-first-get-it ] There are many things I don’t understand these days, and some are undoubtedly due to the limits of my brain power. But at the same time some are not. I’m the kind of person who can no longer believe that anyone would get excited over a 5% American GDP growth number. Not even with any other details thrown in, just simply a print like that. It’s so completely out of left field and out of proportion that you would think by now at least a few more...

If you’re like most Americans, you haven’t been questioning the welcome drop in gasoline prices. You just fill ’er up and feel grateful that you’re spending less.But why has this remarkable drop come about? And what can we do to help keep prices lower?Some of it, unfortunately, is beyond our control. Worldwide demand for oil is down now. That always causes the cost of gasoline to drop.But the other side of the equation -- the part that is under our control -- has gone largely unheralded in many media accounts: the boom in U.S. energy production. Simply put, we’re producing...

Arnold Klann had spent two decades on his planet-friendly enterprise: making transportation fuel from plant waste. But two years ago, the CEO and President of Irvine-based BlueFire Renewables recalled, “We were thinking of shutting down the business.” Grants from the U.S. Department of Energy had dried up, as private banks, tightening credit in the wake of the financial crisis, refused to match government funds. Now, it seems, China is coming to the rescue. BlueFire announced Thursday that The Export-Import Bank of China has issued a letter of intent to provide a $270 million loan to build BlueFire’s first commercial plant,...

NEGATIVE advertising has its uses. It was ads mocking the stately Washington home of Mary Landrieu, Louisiana's Democratic junior senator, that forced her into a run-off after November's election. (SNIP) A Mexican newspaper reported that Mr Bush had agreed to allow more sugar from that country into the United States. Ms Landrieu said this policy (which the White House denied approving) would hurt Louisiana's sugar-cane farmers, and promised to fight it. Her sudden embrace of protectionism was a bit hypocritical, since she and other Louisiana Democrats have scorned Mr Bush's decision to impose tariffs on the foreign steel that moves...