Last week, Robert Bryce, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, penned an op-ed discussing presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s convenient flip-flop on ethanol. Bryce points out that after voting against ethanol 17 times in the Senate, Hillary’s presidential aspirations made her quickly change her tune in 2007. An excerpt from the piece follows:
As Clinton and her allies said back in 2002, the corn ethanol requirements are an anti-consumer government mandate. Between 2007 and 2014, the cost premium for ethanol over an energy-equivalent amount of gasoline has averaged 92 cents per gallon. Total cost to consumers over that eight-year period: about $83 billion. And the ripoff continues. This year, the RFS will require motorists to purchase about 13 billion gallons of ethanol. (Federal legislators, including, notably, California’s Dianne Feinstein, have filed bills to repeal the RFS.)
To be clear, other presidential hopefuls are also bowing and scraping in front of the corn lobby. Republican Jeb Bush, to his credit, at least says he wants a gradual phase out of the RFS. Rand Paul, that great defender of libertarianism, has proposed legislation that could allow the ethanol scammers to blend even more of their expensive Franken-fuel into our gasoline. Only Texas senator Ted Cruz has come out squarely opposed, calling the RFS “corporate welfare.”
But among the candidates, Clinton stands alone as the one who’s flipped stances on ethanol to one that is diametrically opposed to the interests of consumers. As of Tuesday, there was scant information about Clinton’s energy policies – or any other positions — on her website. Nevertheless, if she were going to buck Iowa’s corn barons she would have said so by now.
Clinton’s ethanol flip-flop is particularly egregious given that she wants to position herself as a champion of the little guy. On Sunday, the Associated Press quoted “senior advisers” from her campaign who said that her focus will be on “strengthening economic security for the middle class and expanding opportunities for working families.”
If she were serious about putting more cash into the pockets of ordinary citizens, she would be opposing the corn ethanol tax. Instead, she supports it. And therein lie two stories: the first illustrates Clinton’s ambition; the second illustrates just how thoroughly Iowa and Big Corn have corrupted the presidential selection process. And that corruption costs American motorists every time they pull up to the pump.
You can read the rest of the piece here.