Jeb Bush’s ethanol past may complicate his Iowa future

WASHINGTON — One challenge in running for president is negotiating the surprisingly cutthroat politics of Iowa agriculture, as Jeb Bush and Scott Walker indicated last week, when they both showed more support for corn-based ethanol than they have in the past.

Walker made a reversal of his past positions, but Bush’s change in position was more nuanced. Bush, unlike Walker, who has opposed ethanol outright in the past, has been a champion of the alternative fuel.

However, Bush has also been critical of an energy policy that prioritizes corn-based ethanol over “second-generation” fuels from algae, woods, grasses, plants, and other secondary sources. And it’s the former Florida governor’s past involvement with the issue that may cause him a headache as he seeks to court Iowa corn growers.

During his appearance at a candidate forum hosted by the ethanol and corn industries in Des Moines, Iowa, on March 7, Bush said that the federal renewable fuel standard (RFS) — the law requiring gasoline and diesel fuel to be blended with a percentage of ethanol — “has worked, for sure.”

A few days later, however, the head of a key industry group of second-generation ethanol producers said publicly, without qualification, that the law is not working.

“Eight years after its passage, it is easy to see that the RFS may be working for some, but it is only minimally helpful to advance the promise and potential of next-generation renewable fuels,” Michael McAdams, president of the Advanced Biofuels Association, said in a speech. “We need to acknowledge the simple fact: that the RFS is not equally helpful to all sectors of the biofuels industry.”

McAdams told Yahoo News that he wants Congress to step in and provide guidance to the ethanol industry, since the Environmental Protection Agency has not released up-to-date standards since 2013 on what percentage of the ethanol mix each type of ethanol should get.

The dispute may put Bush in an uncomfortable position, caught between his desire not to alienate Iowa farmers if he pursues the Republican presidential nomination, and his own enthusiastic support in the past for advanced biofuels.

Asked by Yahoo News Friday night in New Hampshire about McAdams’ comments, and whether the sentiments of the second-generation ethanol producers might cause him to reconsider his support for the RFS, Bush said, “Yeah, no, the whole point of this was that the big increases were supposed to be in cellulosic ethanol.”

Cellulosic ethanol is a second-generation bio-fuel, made from grasses, woods or the non-edible parts of plants. Bush’s comment was an acknowledgment that if  the RFS is not working for second generation biofuels then it’s not living up to its original intent.

The powerful corn ethanol lobby is opposed to opening up the RFS to any changes, because of the risk that other groups —the auto industry, oil producers, environmentalists — could force through changes in what has been, until now, a lucrative subsidy for corn growers.

Bush’s carefully calibrated comments earlier this month seemed to agree with the way the corn lobby interprets the law: that it will phase out in 2022. (There are others who say that the EPA coul make the determination after 2022 that the existing standard should continue to remain in force.) And he called for the Environmental Protection Agency to release new mandate levels.

But in the past, Bush has been considerably less enthusiastic about corn ethanol. In the spring of 2007, he spoke at the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington, D.C., at an event co-hosted by the Interamerican Ethanol Commission, a group he had helped start the year before, just before he left the Florida governor’s mansion after two terms.

The commission’s purpose was to promote cooperation between the United States and Latin American ethanol producers. He opposed the 54-cent tariff on foreign ethanol that was protecting U.S. corn growers from competition from Brazil and other foreign producers.

“Our current ethanol policy is in essence, in my opinion at least, an agricultural policy. It’s not an energy policy, and it is certainly not an energy strategy. We need to change our policy as it relates to ethanol, away from an agriculture policy towards an energy policy,” Bush said.

The United States allowed that tariff to expire in 2012.

But second-generation biofuels still lag far behind corn-based ethanol. In his 2007 remarks, Bush also argued in favor of making sure that the United States was not relying only on corn-based ethanol.

“Diversifying the feedstock that we use to produce ethanol is just as important as diversifying our energy portfolio. Right now, the nation depends primarily on corn to produce ethanol. While expanded production of ethanol is in our best interest, relying on a single feedstock produced in one region of this large great country of ours is risky,” Bush said.

The easy solution would be for the EPA to set new mandate levels. But that hasn’t happened. In the meantime, Bush will have to carefully negotiate this essential rite of passage for any candidate who is competing in the Iowa caucuses next. He can, at least, take comfort in knowing that he isn’t the only one.