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Jeb Bush. (photo: Scott Galindez/RSN)
Warning: The GOP Wants to Label Your Foods
09 March 15
eb Bush, who is the one relatively sane Republican candidate when it comes to immigration, is not the same when it comes to food. He wants to know if the cilantro, onions, and avocados he uses when making his guacamole were grown in the USA. Maybe we need state-of-origin labeling too, that way we can avoid hot sauce from New York. Now, he doesn’t care if the seeds were genetically modified, so Franken-corn is just fine for his tortillas. Sorry if you thought I meant GMO labeling. I just have to ask: does a country-of-origin label cost less than a GMO label? If GMOs are such a great thing then let’s have organic and GMO country-of-origin labels. We don’t need two new labels – share the cost.
A bunch of Republican presidential wannabes came together at the Iowa State Fairgrounds on Saturday to bow down to Bruce Rastetter, an agribusiness mogul who’s made a fortune in pork, ethanol, and farm real estate. Rastetter is as close as it gets to a kingmaker for the GOP field in Iowa.
The event was the first annual Iowa Ag Summit. Nine possible GOP presidential candidates took questions from Rastetter in a room with about 500 attendees and over 100 members of the media. The back of the room was lined with cameras, and in two press areas reporters sat in front of their laptops waiting for the memorable quotes, hoping for a gaffe.
Rastetter was a hero inside the venue. Outside, protesters blasted Rastetter, calling him a “factory farm hog baron corporate land grabber.” Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement (CCI) and a coalition of like-minded groups held their own agricultural summit in another part of the fairgrounds.
The CCI’s director, Cherie Mortice, said their summit was about real food security and democratic control of agriculture using methods that can sustain the health of soil, water, communities, and rural economies for future generations. “Our model of agriculture puts people and the planet first,” she said. “We have a deep moral and ideological opposition to Bruce Rastetter’s vision for food and agriculture in Iowa and the nation.”
About 100 protesters greeted the attendees of the GOP-dominated event with picket signs, and at least three people were escorted from the event after heckling Chris Christie and Rastetter.
One of the key issues for the Iowa Agriculture community is the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS). As described on the Department of Energy website, the RFS is a federal program that requires transportation fuel sold in the United States to contain a minimum volume of renewable fuels. The RFS requires renewable fuel to be blended into transportation fuel in increasing amounts each year, escalating to 36 billion gallons by 2022. Each renewable fuel category in the RFS program must emit lower levels of greenhouse gases relative to the petroleum fuel it replaces. Of course, this a big deal to Iowa and its corn industry.
One of the co-sponsors of the event, America’s Renewable Future, claims that since the RFS was instituted in 2007, Iowa has become a national leader in renewable energy, with towns throughout Iowa growing their economies with wind, solar, ethanol, and biodiesel. Mixed bag for environmentalists, but here in Iowa the RFS is becoming the holy grail.
It was a first for Jeb Bush – his first time in Iowa not campaigning for his father or brother. Bush, who has an unhill climb, held his own, using his experience as a governor to talk about agriculture policy during his six-stop, two-day swing through the state. Scott Walker, from neighboring Wisconsin, has spent a lot of time in Iowa and has double the support of any other candidate. The format was perfect for Jeb. He performs much better responding to questions. He gets a bit wonky from the stump.
I don’t think Jeb Bush will be getting Rastetter’s support anytime soon. Walker and Bush both said they wanted to faze out RFS over time. There was debate among the media and advocates of the RFS on Bush’s position, some saying it was supportive, but not as developed as Scott Walker’s reluctant support. Walker, not a fan of any government mandates, was willing to let this one slide, since the oil industry is blocking renewable fuels from access to the pump. Walker was willing to let the RFS force open the market before being fazed out. Also not a fan of subsidies, he referenced past discussions with Rastetter on the issue. At the end of his answer on the subject, Rastetter thanked Walker.
Both Bush and Walker support fazing out a wind tax credit that seemed important to the Iowa Ag community. Walker spoke at length about his own welfare reform, including restricting access to food stamps in Wisconsin. His position was popular in the mostly Republican crowd.
Of course, the two Texas candidates in attendance opposed the RFS. They want to maintain oil’s monopoly on the fuel industry. Both Rick Perry and Ted Cruz want to leave it up to the market and don’t want Washington to mandate any changes to the fuel market. George Pataki joined them in opposition to the RFS. I guess they should get some credit for attending. Rand Paul, who like Cruz opposes any subsidies for ethanol, declined his invitation to the event. Donald Trump, Marco Rubio, and Jim Gilmore were expected to attend but were no-shows.
All of the candidates supported fast track trade authority for themselves if they were president, but some expressed reservations about giving that authority to Obama. In fairness, most said they believed that presidents should have fast track authority, without commenting on the current president. Chris Christie was the most combative, saying he wants to see evidence that the president can negotiate before giving him any authority, but of course Christie wants the authority for himself. Having heard Christie, Mike Huckabee was prepared for the question and got a laugh out of the audience, saying he wants the authority but doesn’t trust anyone else to have it without going through Congress. At times Huckabee sounded like he was opposed to free trade. He called himself a nationalist and criticized the globalists and corporatists. Huckabee brought back memories of Pat Buchanan.
I spoke with a couple of farmers after the event. One surprised me by saying that he was most impressed by former New York governor George Pataki. Despite Pataki’s opposition to the RFS, Darwin Pierce thought he was best for the family farmer. Pierce was probably one of a handful of family farmers. Most in attendance were in agriculture, but big corporate agriculture. Pierce disagreed most with Rick Santorum, who said climate change wasn’t real. According to Pierce, they all missed the boat on GMOs, ignoring the impact they have on the soil. When I pressed him on his support for Pataki, he said he was a Democrat and wouldn’t support any of them.
Walker, Bush, Santorum, and Huckabee were the favorites of Raymond Defenbaugh, from one of the sponsoring organizations of the summit. Defenbaugh said that Walker, being a midwest farming governor, understood the issues best. He thought Walker would remain loyal to farmers, even with his ties to the Koch brothers. He explained that nobody is perfect on the issues and that nobody follows the positions of any group they are part of 100%.
Scott Walker and Jeb Bush were most impressive to Mark Bauch, who works in agriculture. Bauch thought that despite their nuanced answers, both would let the RFS run its course.
Walker and Bush walked out of the summit with their front-runner status intact. Bush spoke in the morning session, and many attendees seemed to follow him out the door. Scott Walker closed the program and seemed to have the support of Rastetter. If he does, and can add his money to the Koch network money, he might be unbeatable in Iowa.
Christie, Santorum, Graham, and Huckabee showed strong support for the positions taken by the corporate farm industry, but I got a sense that they were not in the game.
Cruz, Pataki, and Perry did nothing to help themselves. Pataki could have helped himself with the family farmers, but most of them were not in the room, and the one who was is a registered Democrat.
So, all in all it was a game-changer for only Jeb Bush, who will likely move up in the Iowa polls after his visit, but who still has a long way to go.
Scott Galindez attended Syracuse University, where he first became politically active. The writings of El Salvador's slain archbishop Oscar Romero and the on-campus South Africa divestment movement converted him from a Reagan supporter to an activist for Peace and Justice. Over the years he has been influenced by the likes of Philip Berrigan, William Thomas, Mitch Snyder, Don White, Lisa Fithian, and Paul Wellstone. Scott met Marc Ash while organizing counterinaugural events after George W. Bush's first stolen election. Scott will be spending a year covering the presidential election from Iowa.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.
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