Obama and Ethanol

One name often mentioned as a possible Secretary of Agriculture in an Obama Administration is that of Tom Vilsack, the former governor of Iowa who abandoned his own presidential campaign early in the primary season. He went on to endorse Hillary Clinton, but after she lost, he campaigned hard for Obama.

Vilsack has been op-edding his way across the heartland and elsewhere, which some observers see as part of his campaign for the cabinet post. In his writings, he puts forth ideas on agriculture and food policy that are pretty much standard-issue Democratic fare: protecting family farms, encouraging local food production, sustainability, food security, and ethanol, ethanol, ethanol. Oh, and biodiesel.

That Vilsack is a big supporter of crop fuels is no surprise, of course. Nobody wins office in Iowa without paying fealty to the corn interests.

What's interesting is that Obama himself seems conflicted on the issue. Of course, to win the Iowa primary, he had to say he was a big ethanol supporter, and he voted for this year's farm bill, which was riddled with the usual subsidies. But the section of his Web site that deals with "rural issues" barely mentions ethanol, and then only in tandem with wind power as ways to "create millions of new jobs across the country."

It seems likely Obama knows that corn-based ethanol is a pointless, expensive government boondoggle, but also knew he needed to pay it lip service to win the election. A Secretary Vilsack may need to be reined in by the president.