Ahead of Midterms, Republicans Court Iowa Farmers With Fuel Plans
The nearly three-week harvest delay is the detail I can't stop thinking about. Iowa farmers are already squeezed by a soggy, late season, and suddenly the vice president, the EPA administrator and the agriculture secretary are all on the ground within a month, waving fuel plans around like campaign flyers. Midterms are coming, and ethanol is the most reliable political lever in the state, so the timing writes itself.
What I'd want to know is what's actually in these plans. If they're promises to prop up biofuel blending mandates or ease up on emissions rules for ethanol plants, that's a trade-off farmers should hear spelled out. Corn ethanol has a deeply contested climate record, and boosting it to win votes in one state ignores the harder math of cutting emissions everywhere else.
The rain this year is also a reminder that weather is already rewriting the farm calendar. I'd rather see that high-level attention go into helping agriculture adapt to a warming climate, because soggy, delayed harvests like this one will only become more common. Fuel plans that court votes might set the political calendar, but they don't do much for the farmers standing in those wet fields right now.