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Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad would like to see Ted Cruz defeated, he said on Tuesday. The Iowa governor, whose powerful network of supporters is a prized political commodity, was speaking to reporters at the Iowa Renewable Fuels Summit. Branstad's son Eric is leading efforts to portray the Texas senator as hostile to ethanol, a narrative Cruz has been trying to stifle in recent weeks. Asked if he'd like the Texas senator to lose, Governor Branstad said, "Yes." "I think it would be very damaging to our state," he continued, according to Iowa's Channel 13 news. "I believe it would be...

**SNIP** 1. Biologist Paul Ehrlich predicted in the 1970s that: "Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make," and that "The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years." 2. In January 1970, Life reported, "Scientists have solid experimental and theoretical evidence to support... the following predictions: In a decade, urban dwellers will have to wear gas masks to survive air pollution... by 1985 air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half..." 3. In...

Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf countries are scooping up farmland in drought-afflicted regions of the U.S. Southwest, and that has some people in California and Arizona seeing red. Saudi Arabia grows alfalfa hay in both states for shipment back to its domestic dairy herds. In another real-life example of the world's interconnected economy, the Saudis increasingly look to produce animal feed overseas in order to save water in their own territory, most of which is desert. Privately held Fondomonte California on Sunday announced that it bought 1,790 acres of farmland in Blythe, California -- an agricultural town along the...

A brutal new year selloff in oil markets deepened on Monday, with prices plunging more than 6 percent to new 12-year lows as further ructions in the Chinese stock market threatened to knock crude into the $20s. On Monday, China's blue-chip stocks fell by another 5 percent and overnight interest rates for the yuan outside of China soared to nearly 40 percent, their highest since the launch of the offshore market. Morgan Stanley warned that a further devaluation of the yuan could send oil prices spiraling lower still, extending the year's nearly 15 percent slide. While China's ructions are spooking...

Here is a recurring frustration during election season: Candidates who seem attractive before the race begins suddenly sound squishier or change their positions once they hit the campaign trail.On the issue of cronyism, there is one noticeable exception during this year's campaign. In spite of what could be perceived as a political risk, one candidate has remained true to his opposition to (and his commitment to end) the terrible renewable-fuel standard, which requires blending ethanol and other biofuels into the gasoline supply, thereby driving food prices up and creating all sorts of distortions in the energy market: That's Senator Ted...

The “fair and equitable” piece is where the Obama administration is most vulnerable, said David Gantz, a trade law professor at the University of Arizona College of Law. “The issue becomes, if there is a very detailed procedure for approval or disapproval of pipelines, whether the U.S. followed those procedures or whether it went beyond the criteria or procedures,” Gantz said. “I would say the U.S. is pretty vulnerable on that one issue,” he said, “in part because the White House staff and others essentially said, ‘we know we’re doing this politically and to make a statement,’ but the regulations...

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...

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)...

BENGHAZI, Libya, Jan 6 (Reuters) – Fires caused by clashes between Islamic State militants and guards near Libya's biggest oil ports have spread to four oil storage tanks that were still burning on Wednesday, a guards spokesman said. Ali al-Hassi said the Petroleum Facilities Guards were in control of Es Sider and Ras Lanuf ports, but that skirmishes continued. At least nine guards were killed and more than 40 injured in fighting around the perimeter of the area on Monday and Tuesday. Hassi said guards had recovered bodies of 30 Islamic State fighters, and had also captured two military tanks...

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...