(Arnolds Park)– U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley made a stop this (Thurs.) afternoon at The Waterfront in Arnolds Park where he was the keynote speaker at the FUELIowa Summerfest Lunch, where he addressed the Biden Administration energy policy…
“I have great disagreements not with the end goal of the Biden Administration policy, but by the speed in which they’re trying to put it in. I don’t think it gives consideration to the fact that if we have 2/3 or all of the electric vehicles by 2035 what it’s going to do to the ethanol industry in Iowa and 43,000 jobs that we have in ethanol. I don’t care if people want electric vehicles, I just want the market place to make the determination. I don’t want Washington to regulate it in or dictate it in.”
Grassley added it is critical the U.S becomes energy independent…
“We don’t have it now because of the administration’s not building the Excel Pipeline, stopping drilling here and there, stopping fracking and things of that nature.”
He also called for an energy policy that would allow for the use of E-15 year-round…
“Oddly enough it seems to me that we may be getting some support from the White House on that issue which kind of surprises me because, you know, when you’re talking about ethanol it does involve 90 percent of it being petroleum and I don’t think they really want to promote that. But I think they’re embarrassed by the fact that present law gives the Governors of some states, mostly ethanol producing states, the authority to have E15 year-round and I think they feel it would be better off if we had a uniform national standard. That means the White House may be for it as a practical matter even though idealogically they don’t like ethanol.”
Grassley also gave an update on the new farm bill making its way through Congress. We’ll hear his comments on that in upcoming newscasts.
