Cindy Zimmerman
August 11, 2008

Republican presidential candidate John McCain repeatedly called his
audience at the Iowa State Fair on Friday “my friends” but his stand
on ethanol and farm policy are not very friendly to farmers in this
part of the country.

Give the man credit for having the guts to stand up in the middle of
the country’s largest ethanol producing state, beside the Iowa
commissioner of agriculture (and past corn growers president) and the
Iowa Farm Bureau president and tell them he disagreed with them about
ethanol support.

“I believe in renewable fuels,” McCain said. “I don’t believe in
ethanol subsidies, but I believe in renewable fuels. I believe we have
to do all of those things to restore our economy.”

Some will say you can’t have it both ways. McCain’s “Lexington
Project” plan for energy independence relies mainly on domestic oil
exploration and natural gas. However, the plan does include calling on
car makers to made ” a more rapid and complete switch to FFVs” as well
as increasing development of cellulosic ethanol.

Very clearly, he would like to eliminate all “mandates, subsidies,
tariffs and price supports that focus exclusively on corn-based
ethanol and prevent the development of market-based solutions which
would provide us with better options for our fuel needs.”

According to this AP article, McCain recently came out strongly
against all farm programs. “I don’t support agricultural subsidies no
matter where they are,” McCain said at a recent appearance in
Wisconsin. “The farm bill, $300 billion, is something America simply
can’t afford.”

Other Republicans are a little concerned about McCain’s views.

“I would not advise him to take that position,” Senator Chuck Grassley
(R-IA) is quoted as saying in the same article. “For sure, he can’t
lose Missouri and that’s in the upper Midwest. Could he lose Iowa,
Minnesota and Wisconsin and still be elected president? Yes, but I
wouldn’t advise him to have that strategy.”

It’s very important to stress that farm policy is not just for
Midwestern farmers. It is for all of America. Of the $307 billion in
spending authorized by the bill through 2012, $209 billion is for
nutrition programs and $25 billion is for conservation. Just $35
billion - about 10 percent of the total - goes to agricultural
commodity programs, including research and market promotion, not just
direct payments. I would contend, as would many that America can’t
afford NOT to have farm policy that helps farmers stay in business and
feeds the hungry of this country and the world.
http://www.goodfuels.org/2008/08/mccain-in-ethanol-country/