(Radio Iowa) – The four Republicans who represent Iowa in the U.S. House have voted for a new version of the Farm Bill after joining a bipartisan majority of House members to strip legal protections for a popular pesticide from the bill. A Republican congresswoman from Colorado threatened to slaughter the Farm Bill if the language about RoundUp remained in the bill.
Iowa’s congressional delegation is touting a number of items that remain in the Farm Bill — including enhanced federal oversight to ensure foreigners do not buy or own U.S. farmland as well as an attempt to override a California law that bars the sale of pork products from animals raised in tight stalls that do not give the hogs enough room to move.
House leaders say a separate vote on allowing year-round sales of E-15 is held the House on May 13th. Senator Chuck Grassley says President Trump promised during his trip to Iowa in January that he’d sign the bill into law. “I hope the leadership of the House of Representatives keeps their word to get E15 a floor vote and do that in very short order,” Grassley said. “In fact, I don’t really know what all the problem is about E15.”
Grassley says Presidents Trump and Biden have issued waivers so E-15 could be sold in the summer months and it’s time to make the policy permanent. “Now I hear from some states that don’t have E15 that their people don’t want it because it’s going to raise the price of gasoline,” Grassley said. “Come to Iowa! Come to other Midwestern states where we have E15 year-round and you’ll find gasoline that has a 15% mixture (of ethanol) cheaper than any other grade of gas that you can buy.”
In January, a move to allow sales of E-15 during the summer driving season was pulled from a budget bill and House leaders had indicated a vote solely on the E-15 policy would be held in February. Iowa Congressman Randy Feenstra is co-chair of the group of House lawmakers who’ve been trying this year to hammer out an E-15 compromise to satisfy complaints from mid-sized refiners about the Renewable Fuels Standard.
