“Rep. Bruce Braley is betting the farm on corn — and Democrats’ hold on the Senate may be in danger if he’s wrong,” says the lead sentence in Politico on the Senate campaign in Iowa. The Hawkeye state is No 1 i corn and ethanol production, with several thousand people working at ethanol plants. Braley “is busy posing at gas stations that sell the corn-based biofuel, campaigning with farmers and pressuring EPA to protect the federal mandate that guarantees corn’s role in the U.S. fuel supply,” says Politico while the GOP nominee, state Sen Joni Ernst, “has been more elusive on the issue — saying she ‘philosophically’ opposes government meddling in markets but promising to protect EPA’s ethanol program until all other subsidies are repealed.”
The administration “is widely expected” to set the mandate for use of corn-based ethanol for this year at roughly 13.6 billion gallons, up from the 13 billion gallons proposed in November, says Reuters. It says ethanol makers have suggested longer-term changes in the Renewable Fuels Standard, including faster approval of new “advanced” biofuels and a new calculation of reductions in life-cycle emissions of greenhouse gases by corn ethanol vs gasoline.