Former president Donald Trump, ignoring his own mixed record on biofuels, said at a rally in western Iowa that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, his most viable challenger for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, “totally despises Iowa ethanol and ethanol generally.” Trump, who directed $23 billion in bailouts to farmers to offset a decline in ag exports during the trade war with China, described himself as “the most pro-farmer president that you’ve ever had.”
Trump chose ethanol foe Scott Pruitt as his first EPA administrator and faced repeated complaints about EPA waivers that exempted dozens of small petroleum refineries from the federal mandate to blend ethanol into gasoline. A 2019 Trump regulation allowing summer-time sale of E15 was an outright misinterpretation of the law, the U.S. appeals court in Washington ruled in overturning the regulation two years later.
At a rally in Council Bluffs, across the Missouri River from Omaha, Trump said, “I fought for Iowa ethanol like no president in history,” reported The Associated Press. A DeSantis spokesman said the governor “will be a champion for farmers and use every tool available to open new markets.” DeSantis was co-sponsor of a 2017 House bill to end the Renewable Fuel Standard.
Iowa is the top corn and ethanol state in the nation and for decades has been one of the first states to winnow the presidential field. Agriculture and ethanol are routinely raised as issues in Iowa, but farmers are only 5 percent of the state population, according to the Iowa Farm Bureau.
The USDA says there are 86,000 farms in the Hawkeye State. Some 3.2 million people live in Iowa.
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz won the 2016 precinct caucuses, with 28 percent of the vote, notwithstanding his support for a five-year phase-out of the ethanol mandate. Trump was second with 24 percent and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio was third with 23 percent. A nationwide poll of farmers ahead of the caucuses found national security was their top issue and only 3 percent said renewable fuels should be the top concern. Trump was uncontested for renomination in 2020.
Iowa Republicans will hold their first-in-the-nation presidential caucus on Jan. 15, 2024, which also is Martin Luther King Day, GOP leaders announced over the weekend. The Democratic National Committee has voted to start the 2024 nominating process with a primary in South Carolina on Feb. 3.