Michael Bloomberg is going to Iowa. I pray that he goes with God because the corn fields of that state are hostile political territory, and the former mayor of New York City is a marked man.
Everyone understands why Bloomberg has decided to make the trip. He is testing the 2020 waters. And everyone in Iowa understands what Bloomberg thinks about ethanol. He isn’t a fan.
Bloomberg said in a 2007 MSNBC interview that ethanol subsidies make for bad energy policy “unless what you’re trying to do is to help the people in Iowa and I don’t.” He followed up the next year by condemning the food shortages in the developing world caused by growing corn for fuel rather than food. Subsidized ethanol, Bloomberg told the World Science Summit, was “moral bankruptcy.”
This is not a popular position among the political class in Iowa where the Renewable Fuels Standard is the sacred cow. The ethanol mandate requires refiners to blend the biofuel into their gasoline driving up demand for the crop and enriching ethanol barons in the process.
The Iowa congressional caucus jealously guards the ethanol subsidy and Iowa makes ethanol the defining issue in their first in the nation primary. Even the most free market guys in Washington become protectionists in Iowa. Look at Sen. Marco Rubio who offered the best-worst defense of the subsidy during the Republican primary. The Florida man said “it would be unfair to simply yank it away from people that have made investments based on its existence.” Environmentalist Al Gore defended ethanol subsidies. Swamp-drainer Donald Trump fiercely championed this special-interest favor. Fierce conservative Mitt Romney set aside his free-enterprise beliefs when it came to ethanol subsidies.
Ethanol production regularly gobbles up as much as 40 percent of the nation’s corn crop, making animal feed and human food more expensive as a result. It has boosted fuel costs by as much as $3.4 billion since 2014, according to the EPA’s own analysis. And it may actually increase emissions, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Bloomberg has reasons for hope though. He can point to the above evidence and, not just survive the Hawkeye State, he could actually win. Just ask Ted Cruz
Cruz was the rare Republican who actually called for ending the ethanol mandate. He argued that subsidies hurt farmers and helped lobbyists. He didn’t shy away from a thorny agricultural issue and he ended up winning over enough farmers to carry the Iowa caucuses in 2016.
Does Bloomberg have that same courage?
