Was the Ethanol Lobby the Big Loser in Iowa this Year?

[Draggingtree]

Mises: Was the Ethanol Lobby the Big Loser in Iowa this Year?

FEBRUARY 2, 2016 Ryan McMaken

 

For years, the Iowa caucuses have been heavily influenced by the role of agriculture subsidies in the state in the form of ethanol subsidies. It has long been regarded as political suicide to go into Iowa and call for the end of the federal government's ethanol subsidies program.

 

Ted Cruz, who won the Iowa caucuses last night, did just that.

 

Indeed,Cruz didn't just mention on the side that he wasn't

 

interested in protecting the subsidies. He came right out and announced that he wanted to cut them. The Wall Street Journal reports:

 

In Sioux Center on Tuesday, Mr. Cruz reiterated his campaign position: That the fuel standard should be phased out and ended by 2022. Mr. Cruz once supported legislation repealing the mandate right away, as a co-sponsor of a bill in 2013. In 2014, Mr. Cruz introduced a separate bill that would overhaul several energy policies, including phasing out the mandate over five years, similar to his current campaign position.

[Draggingtree]

How Cruz Crushed Ethanol

by ELIANA JOHNSON & BRENDAN BORDELON February 3, 2016 4:02 PM

‘There’s an Iowa way of doing this, and the rest of the candidates did it the Iowa way,” Majda Sarkic, a spokeswoman for the pro-ethanol group America’s Renewable Future, told National Review days before the Iowa caucuses. All of the candidates except Ted Cruz, that is. In a highly unusual move for a man who sought, and ultimately won, the support of Iowa caucus-goers, Cruz didn’t court, kowtow to, or bow down before King Corn. From the time they arrived in the Senate eyeing a presidential run three years ago, he and his advisers have known that his opposition to the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), which requires gasoline to contain a minimum level of ethanol, would cause him headaches in Iowa. But as early as the state’s agricultural summit last May, he signaled that he would play to win the state on his own terms.

How did he pull it off? Yes, the Republican party has grown less tolerant of crony capitalism and government subsidies in the Obama era.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/430758/iowa-caucuses-ted-cruz-beats-ethanol-industry