Free Republic

HOUSTON, Texas – The Cruz for President campaign announced Congressman Steve King to serve as a National Co-Chair for Cruz. King endorsed Cruz in November of last year saying that Cruz is the "one man that stands out as the courageous conservative whom I believe can restore the soul of America." King is a seven term Congressman who has been a consistent leader fighting for conservative issues like securing our border, protecting life and marriage and our Constitution. King has joined Cruz on the road in Iowa this week during the "Cruzin' for Caucus" Iowa bus tour, hitting 28 counties...

SIOUX CENTER - During a bus tour stop in Sioux Center, Iowa last night, Senator Ted Cruz expressed support for the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) through 2022. Responding to a question from an ethanol investor from Iowa about whether he would allow the landmark energy program to continue through its current expiration in 2022, Sen. Cruz responded by expressing support for the RFS through 2022. Senator Cruz also expressed passionate support for breaking through the so-called "blendwall." That "blendwall" makes it illegal for ethanol to expand its market penetration, and I intend to eliminate the EPA blendwall to get rid...

The recent editorial by Douglas Burns on the Texas connection between Ted Cruz and Congressman Steve King missed the mark on several important points as it relates to ethanol. Senator Cruz’ opposition to the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) is, as the author points out, based on “ideological rigidity, an unbudging conservatism and refusal to break from his own established boundaries of where the government should and shouldn’t go.” Does that make him anti-ethanol? I suppose if the RFS was the sole measuring stick, then perhaps. But a fundamental misunderstanding regarding Cruz is the accusation that he completely dismisses ethanol and...

Professional Pandering -- Desperate Cruz, Dependent on Iowa, Flip-Flops on Ethanol Subsidies... Posted on January 6, 2016 by sundance In what can only be noted as "typically Cruzian" the Senator who sponsored the "Renewable Fuel Standard Repeal Act", which would have immediately repealed the ethanol mandate, has now reversed course and claims to support continued Iowa Corn Subsidies. The pandering flip-flop becomes "brutally Cruzian" when the campaign for Ted Cruz denies the current change in position by pointing to a prior change in position; saying, in effect: when Senator Ted Cruz decided to run for President he changed his position,...

Since last summer, Bob Dudley, the CEO of the British oil giant BP, has been cautioning that he expects oil prices to stay “lower for longer.” Now he believes he’s determined how much longer those prices may decline, and when they may start rising again. “A low point could be in the first quarter [of 2016],” Dudley said in an interview broadcast Saturday by the BBC. “But 2016’s third and fourth quarters could witness a more natural balance between supply and demand, after which stock levels could start to wear off.”

Armchair analysts have been predicting an oil price war between Saudi Arabia and Iran for a while now, and escalating tensions between the countries would seem to portend a major market disruption. But that war may never come. Saudi Arabia announced Monday that it will sever all commercial ties with Iran, a day after the kingdom said it would cut diplomatic relations with Iran. Protesters stormed the Saudi embassy in Tehran earlier Sunday, and the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, predicted "divine vengeance" for the Saudi execution of a major Shiite cleric. Saudi Arabia is predominantly Sunni and home...

Spirit Lake, IA – Today, the Cruz campaign responded to the false claims from the ethanol lobby that presidential candidate Ted Cruz has shifted his position on the Renewable Fuel Standard mandate:Cruz has consistently supported a five-year phase out of the Renewable Fuel Standard. Cruz first introduced the five-year phase out in 2014.Cruz publicly called for the phase out at the Iowa Ag summit last March: "But Cruz, who has called for phasing out the RFS program over five years, said Americans are fed up with “career politicians” who pander to voters, especially in places like Iowa, with its outsized...

It’s the ethanol, Sherlock....For if he wins Iowa, he will have defeated the ethanol lobby. And beating Big Corn on its home turf is what can propel him to a win in New Hampshire.People in New Hampshire hate ethanol. Ethanol is corrosive, it destroys engines. If ethanol-laced gasoline is more than a couple months old, it can't be used in high performance small engines. It is hydroscopic, attracting water, another problem with performance.A lot of guys have a personal problem with ethanol. Go to any tavern in New Hampshire and you'll hear an earful. There's nothing worse than getting all rigged out with your chain saw, ready to...

Conventional wisdom says that you cannot win Iowa without kissing the pinky ring of the Iowa corn lobby and pledging your fealty to the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), the anti-science policy which is bad for the environment, fuel mileage, and America at large. Iowa’s traditional role as the first Presidential contest for both parties basically ensures that anyone with even a whiff of Presidential ambition has largely taken a pass at criticizing a policy which is a bad idea for everyone except an extremely well-connected group of corn farmer lobbyists.Ted Cruz has been challenging all that with his current Presidential...

...Senator Ted Cruz, already under attack in Iowa for opposing government support for ethanol, has won the support of an out-of-state conservative leader, Ken Cuccinelli II, who on Tuesday aimed an unusually blistering attack on "Big Corn"......"The Governor of Iowa is a Big Corn cheerleader, and his son is running a super PAC hitting Cruz for not bowing to worship Big Corn..." wrote Mr. Cucinelli, the former attorney general of Virginia.He described an agricultural forum in Iowa early in the year attended by presidential hopefuls as a "Big corn kiss up confab."Mr. Cruz is leading Iowa polls of likely Republican...

- Every Republican who has won the Iowa caucuses since 1980 has strongly backed ethanol....- Enter Ted Cruz. Insiders agree the Texas senator is the current frontrunner going into the Feb. 1 caucuses. He's been unabashedly critical of federal support for ethanol, including the RFS, which he sees as market-distorting corporate welfare.- Recognizing he poses an existential threat to the special benefits it receives from the government, the corn lobby is going all in to stop Cruz in Iowa.....- But what if they aren't able to stop him?- Here's the bottom line: If Cruz wins Iowa, it could become untenable...

Part of the job of the Environmental Protection Agency is clearly to promote their own policies and demonstrate to the American people how they are working to benefit the nation. (That is, when they’re not busy wasting massive amounts of money and polluting river systems.) But there’s a fine line to be walked between educating the public on the issues and blatant politicking to benefit the party currently controlling the White House. One of the agency’s spokespeople, Janet McCabe (Administrator for the Office of Air and Radiation) seems to have clearly and flagrantly stepped over that line this weekend. In...

If you’re like most Americans, you’re enjoying the fact that it costs a lot less to fill up your car’s gas tank these days. If you’re a fan of big government, you may feel a bit ambivalent, though. Why? Because one of the biggest drivers behind the drop in gas prices is the rise in directional drilling and hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) here at home. While the government is busy micromanaging the energy industry — trying to saddle it with more regulations while showering favors on so-called “green” companies — the free market is showing how to actually get things done....

The Hill reports the Environmental Agency (EPA) has delayed its Renewable Fuel Standard compliance deadline for a second time and noted that its 2014 rulemaking “has been more time consuming than originally anticipated, involving over 300,000 comments”: Petroleum companies will get a breather from latest round of renewable fuel standard, as the Environmental Protection Agnecy (EPA) is once again delaying the deadline for compliance with the 2013 standards. The Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) is a program started under the Bush administration that requires that increasing amounts of renewable fuels that emit lower levels of greenhouse gases be mixed with gas...

The word “gasoline” no longer characterizes the stuff we put into our cars. Owing to regulations forced on the refining industry, “Frankenol” might be more accurate. This government-engineered, market-distorting fuel is a blend of 90 percent gasoline and 10 percent ethanol (E10). Originally conceived to breathe life into the fledgling U.S. ethanol industry and reduce our dependence on foreign oil, continued tinkering with the renewable fuel standard (RFS) has turned the program into a nightmare. The RFS requires refiners to blend increasing amounts of ethanol into the nation’s fuel pool annually. Last year, they were responsible for blending a minimum...

Energy: In yet another green folly, the lawless Environmental Protection Agency continues to fine gasoline producers for not using cellulosic biofuels in quantities that don't exist, making only more pain at the pump. Last month, a federal court dealt a serious blow to the Environmental Protection Agency's renewable fuels push by ruling that the agency exceeded its authority by mandating refiners use cellulosic biofuels, which aren't commercially available. The EPA's lawless response in a lawless administration was to raise its requirements. In 2005 and 2007, Congress twice amended the Clean Air Act to establish a renewable fuel standard (RFS) that...

Enlarge Image Legal fuel. A federal court has struck down portions of a U.S. law mandating the use of cellulosic ethanol, made from woody plants such as this switchgrass grown in Texas. Credit: Warren Gretz/NREL A federal appeals court on Friday struck down a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) mandate requiring millions of gallons of cellulosic ethanol be blended into gasoline by petroleum refineries. The ruling is seen as a partial victory for the American Petroleum Institute (API), which challenged the mandate arguing that EPA was requiring refiners to use a fuel that was not commercially available or face...

The Obama administration on Friday rebuffed requests by Texas Gov. Rick Perry and the leaders of several other states to waive a federal renewable fuel mandate that requires ethanol to be blended into the nation's gasoline supply. In rejecting the waiver requests, the Environmental Protection Agency effectively disagreed with the states' concerns that the mandate was spiking corn demand and prices following a drought that devastated crops in the Midwest. The EPA concluded the Renewable Fuel Standard would not cause "severe economic harm" to states and regions. "We recognize that this year's drought has created hardship in some sectors of...