Hillary Clinton’s campaign mulled supporting the elimination of the Environmental Protection Agency’s renewable fuels program before a campaign tour through the corn state of Iowa last year, according to illegally obtained emails posted by the website WikiLeaks.
Senior campaign aides suggested in the April 2015 emails that coming out forcefully against the EPA would put her at odds with the Obama administration but would go “further” than any Democrat or Republican on the issue of EPA’s Renewable Fuel Standard. Supporting the repeal of the standard, which requires certain amounts of ethanol and other biofuels be added into gasoline and diesel supplies, would put her at odds with many Midwest corn states and environmental groups that support the program.
“Many environmental groups see the RFS as a critical instrument in driving biodiesel and other advanced biofuels production,” said senior campaign adviser Jake Sullivan in asking for feedback from campaign manager and campaign chairman Robby Mook and John Podesta, respectively. “Such a position would be surprising and clearly differentiated from other Democrats, the Obama administration, and a number of likely or announced Republican presidential contenders,” Sullivan said.
Sullivan floated three policy options for her to take on the RFS: maintain the “status quo, reform” the program or “repeal” it.
The emails revealed that Podesta had advised Clinton to support reforming the standard, while being critical of the EPA for missing a key deadline in 2014 for issuing its annual fuel requirements. Concerns about the negative effects of blending too much ethanol into the fuel supply had led the agency not to issue requirements for 2014 until well over a year later.
“EPA couldn’t even get the program out the door in 2014,” Podesta said in an April 2015 email to Mook. Podesta recommended that Clinton focus “more on the program needs to be reformed” than holding to the status quo or supporting its outright repeal.
Podesta wanted her to show support for second-generation renewable fuels, while not going out of her way to criticize corn ethanol. Clinton’s message should focus “more on the virtues of advanced biofuels and less explicit knocks on corn ethanol,” he said.
The emails showed that the campaign was struggling to figure out where Clinton stood on the EPA program a week before she embarked on a road trip through Iowa. The Iowa caucuses would kick off the primary season in February 2016 and were seen as important in getting momentum for her campaign. Clinton won the caucuses.
Her advisers wanted to strike the right balance between changes to support second-generation renewable fuels that are better for the climate and lowering greenhouse gas emissions, while still showing the right level of support for first-generation fuels such as corn ethanol so as to not lose Midwestern voters.
Sullivan seemed to want Podesta to review the first two options for Clinton’s campaign position on the fuel standard and ethanol. Option 1 focused on the “status quo,” with no mention of reforming the standard and the ethanol requirements, which “would certainly garner support in Midwest states and Iowa in particular,” Sullivan said. “In our view, while many environmental, consumer, and aid groups would be mildly disappointed (as would the oil and gas industry) few would see it as a surprise or make it a significant campaign issue.”
Option 2 would support “reform” of the renewable fuel program.
“I think we can be in a more ethanol-friendly version of option 2,” Podesta said.
Highlighting the need to “reform” the program would emphasize the “cleanest and most sustainable types of biofuels production and lets the market identify the most valuable biofuels uses, rather than having the EPA specify,” according to an outline of options provided by Sullivan.
The reform “approach would mark a significant departure from her 2008 position and that of the Obama administration, and thus would likely receive considerable primary attention,” Sullivan said. “Consumer and aid groups would applaud the move, and the oil and gas industry would welcome it.” The oil and gas industry opposes incentivizing higher blends of corn ethanol for a variety of reasons, from causing engine damage to driving up the cost of food.
“Most environmental organizations would welcome it as well, provided it shifted the policy’s focus from conventional to advanced biofuels,” he said. “This approach, however, would be strongly opposed by existing biofuel interests and corn growers heavily concentrated in Iowa and other Midwest states.”
In May 2015, Clinton published an op-ed spelling out continued support for the Renewable Fuel Standard and the need to get it back on track, while recognizing new advances in clean fuel development. The position she outlined look much more like the status quo than option 2 reform.
In summer 2016, Clinton aides visited with Mary Nichols, the head of California’s Air Resources Board, which oversees the Golden State’s low-carbon fuel program, which is much more strict than the Renewable Fuel Standard in its support for second-generation biofuels over corn ethanol. The visit was initially reported as Clinton studying an alternative to the fuel standard, in this case a low-carbon fuel program that resembles option 2 under Sullivan’s outline.
Clinton officials later said they were not considering a nationalized version of the California clean fuels program, and the meeting with Nichols was more informational than anything else.
