Kansas City Star, MO
03-11-07
Candidates revisit ethanol
Iowa sees their appreciation grow in pre-caucus courting of agricultural needs.
By RICK MONTGOMERY
The Kansas City Star
JOHNSTON, Iowa | Visiting the tall-corn state last week, Hillary Rodham Clinton
gazed into a research dish of tiny corn-kernel embryos and muttered,
“Fascinating.”
The Democratic presidential hopeful from New York came to the outskirts of Des
Moines — home of Pioneer Hi-Bred International Inc. — to tell Iowans how much
she values the seed company’s studies in developing ethanol and other
“biofuels.”
Never mind that Clinton’s votes in the Senate have not always supported ethanol
research or the Midwest corn growers who help make the fuel additive.
But this is presidential politics, and Iowans have come to expect national
candidates to find new appreciation for the state’s agricultural needs the year
before its first-in-the-nation caucuses.
Sen. John McCain of Arizona, a Republican, has voiced newfound support for
federal ethanol incentives as well, despite having vigorously fought them in the
past.
GOP contender Rudolph Giuliani has barely weighed in on the issue, since his
job as New York mayor provided little contact with corn growers. But Giuliani’s
staff reminds Iowans that he and other New York officials once endorsed an Iowa
congressmen’s bill on renewable fuels.
Republican Mitt Romney was in Iowa in January, visiting an ethanol factory
between handshakes with Hawkeye fans.
The charge that presidential aspirants pander to Iowa isn’t new. Even the TV
drama “West Wing” served up a 2005 episode titled “King Corn” in which goodguy candidate Matt Santos struggles against his instincts as he decides to
support ethanol subsidies.
In 2007, however, the nation faces different circumstances, say ethanol’s
supporters: Concerns have never been higher about global warming and
America’s dependence on foreign oil from volatile governments.
“In today’s climate, ethanol isn’t the political football it might have been before,”
said Matt Hartwig of the Renewable Fuels Association in Washington. “The
benefits are not viewed as much as a regional thing — some Midwest
phenomenon looked upon warily” by lawmakers in coastal states.
“Energy policy is now seen more as something applying broadly to the national
interest. It’s near the top of the list of voter concerns wherever you go.”
While in Iowa, Clinton echoed these sentiments and called for a “moonshot”
mission to curb oil imports and carbon emissions: “I’d like to see us put money
behind the research you’re doing here in Iowa.”
Still, in 2002 she voted against a $14 billion package of biofuel tax incentives and
a bill tripling the amount of ethanol blended into gasoline.
Her campaign people in Iowa told reporters that Clinton back then was putting
her New York constituents first, that she and many colleagues outside the
Midwest feared ethanol mandates would cause gas prices to spike.
Clinton’s switch probably won’t hurt her among a party base in Iowa that is
“buzzing” about her candidacy, said Steffen Schmidt, a political science
professor at Iowa State University. Among Democrats, Clinton trails former
Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina in early Iowa polling. But Schmidt said that
could change as she and Sen. Barack Obama gain traction. Obama, of Illinois, is
widely seen as a friend to environmentalists and his own state’s ethanol
interests.
Clinton “might get some attack ads leveled her way for flip-flopping. But Iowans
right now are getting on board with her and Obama,” Schmidt said. “And a lot of
them really aren’t thinking about ethanol.”
About 500 Pioneer Hi-Bred workers crowded into the headquarters’ atrium to
hear Clinton’s remarks about alternative-fuel research and energy conservation.
“We can’t tread water any longer,” she said. “The security situation in the world
will not permit us.”
As part of what she calls a “Strategic Energy Fund,” Clinton proposes federal
loan guarantees for commercial ethanol production and tax credits to gas station
owners who install ethanol pumps.
Scott Hedderich, a Pioneer industry relations manager who works closely with
farm groups, said he credits any candidate willing to be open-minded to ethanol’s
potential: “You could look at all of the politicians and the positions they take
before coming into Iowa and … you never know,” they might reconsider.
“I’m less cynical than some” about candidates who adopt views suitable to rural
Iowans, said Monte Shaw, executive director of the Iowa Renewable Fuels
Association.
“When someone says, ‘The ethanol plant in my little town created the first new
jobs in years,’ that sticks to candidates. … I think their change of heart can be
genuine.”
The ethanol lobbyist added, “I like converts” such as Clinton.