The countdown to the Iowa caucuses brings us less than two months to voting day and 15 out of 16 Presidential nominee hopefuls have either visited a biofuels plant or met with America’s Renewable Future (ARF). Who is missing? Ted Cruz, who is under fire from ARF for his wishy-washy position on the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS). Cruz’s political team has fought back claiming Cruz wants to end all energy subsidies, but interestingly, ethanol receives no subsidies while oil has been raking them in for more than 100 years and Cruz gets millions from the oil industry in campaign donations.
Lincolnway Energy located in Nevada, Iowa. Photo Credit: Joanna Schroeder
Just last week Gov. Mike Huckabee, Gov. Chris Christie, and Carly Fiorina toured ethanol biorefineries across the state. This week Sen. Rick Santorum is touring Lincolnway Energy in Nevada, IA. These candidates join Donald Trump and Gov. Martin O’Malley in seeing firsthand the benefits of the RFS at a plant says ARF.
In addition, ARF says Sec. Hillary Clinton, Sen. Marco Rubio, Sen. Bernie Sanders, Gov. Jeb Bush, Gov. John Kasich, Sen. Lindsey Graham, Gov. George Pataki, Sen. Rand Paul, and Ben Carson or their campaigns have all met with ARF co-chairs or the organization’s leadership on the RFS.
“Every candidate, good or bad, has respected Iowans and the caucus process by sitting down with us and learning about the RFS, except for Ted Cruz,” said ARF State Director, Eric Branstad, “Cruz has ignored invitation after invitation to discuss the issue. He came to Iowa with his allegiance already established to the oil industry, not Iowans and not our caucus process.”
“We’re thankful to the rest of the candidates for taking this issue seriously and listening to Iowans,” Branstad added, “and we hope to hear more from them on the RFS, which is decreasing our dependence on foreign oil, providing 73,000 jobs to Iowans, and providing consumers a choice at the pump.”
ARF is educating Iowans on the caucus process and wants voters to know where the candidates stand on renewable fuels. Caucuses take place across Iowa February 1, 2016.