Jobs That Need to Get Done: A Fair Shot For Our Farmers

Growing up on the Greenfield farm, my parents raised hogs, row crops and five kids. They also taught us hard work and resilience.

I remember the Russian grain embargo and seeing firsthand how bad decisions in Washington can directly and negatively affect the lives of our farm families.

When the farm crisis hit in the 1980s, families like mine were in ruin. My siblings and I worked part-time jobs to pitch in, my family sold our crop dusting business and we never farmed again. We went to auctions and watched families box up all of their belongings and sell them. Those families left town and never came back.

We can never let that happen again.

But unfortunately, between haphazard trade, what I’ve been calling the “Ernst ethanol policies” since I got into this race, and COVID-19, our farm families are struggling again.

Forty years after the farm crisis, Iowa’s farmers are again on the brink. Even before the pandemic, net farm income in Iowa was down 75% since 2013 and farm bankruptcies were at an eight-year high.

Instead of helping, Senator Joni Ernst has been no friend to our farmers. She refuses to take meaningful action to stop haphazard trade. She took over $440,000 from Big Oil and voted for a fossil fuel lobbyist to run the EPA, which has been issuing RFS waivers that have devastated our ethanol jobs and farmers. Now, as the agency considers over 50 gap-year waivers that will be another body blow here in Iowa, Ernst is refusing to join my call for EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler to resign.

This is especially frustrating because Iowa is home to the best farmers in the world. They are independent and they take pride in their hard work. They don’t want handouts.

They just need a fair shot to compete, get ahead and raise their families.

That’s why my plan empowers our farmers to compete around the world, growing our ethanol industry and leveling the playing field to put more money in the pockets of farmers. We also need to lead the way to ensure conservation efforts create economic opportunity, along with supporting policies that create more overall access to good-paying jobs, education, health care and infrastructure in rural Iowa. Please read more below about how I’ll put our farmers first.

Sincerely,

Theresa

Competing Around the World: Theresa believes trade policies moving forward must be fair for our farmers, while also protecting and creating jobs in Iowa’s advanced agricultural and manufacturing industries.

On Senator Ernst’s watch, Iowa farmers have been hurt by haphazard trade and tariff policies that have cost our state’s economy over $2 billion. These harmful policies are causing even more long-term damage by undermining our hard-won trading relationships with countries like China that are increasingly turning toward our competitors like Brazil for soybeans. We need to hold bad actors like the Chinese government accountable. At the same time, our farmers cannot afford the current go-it-alone approach, which has put a target on their backs.

While Senator Ernst has refused to take meaningful action against the haphazard trade actions that hurt Iowa’s agricultural economy, Theresa knows our farmers want their markets back and a fair shot to compete. Theresa supports the U.S. building and leading a global coalition that holds bad actors accountable and compels countries like China to make changes that level the playing field for American businesses, workers and farmers. We must also work in a coalition to reform the World Trade Organization, including steps to ensure new time limits so decisions on trade disputes are faster and more meaningful. Additionally, Theresa supports legislation that would limit the power of the President to use a vague justification to enact Section 232 tariffs, which have been used in a way that hurt Iowa’s farmers. Creating more congressional oversight of these tariffs will also give Iowa’s farmers a stronger voice in decisions that directly impact their lives and livelihoods.

Protecting & Growing Iowa’s Ethanol & Biofuels Jobs: We need to protect and expand Iowa’s ethanol and biofuels industry. It’s an essential market in Iowa for our farmers, which also generates thousands of good-paying jobs. Senator Ernst took over $440,000 from Big Oil and turned her back on our farmers by voting to confirm Big Oil allies to run the EPA, including the current Administrator, Andrew Wheeler, who is a former fossil fuel lobbyist. As a result, the EPA has issued over 80 RFS waivers that devastated Iowa’s biofuels and farming economy, while lining the pockets of Big Oil. When Theresa learned the EPA is still considering granting more than 50 additional so-called gap-year waivers from past years, she called for Wheeler to resign immediately. To date, Ernst has still refused to call for Wheeler’s resignation.

As a U.S. Senator for Iowa, Theresa will vote to confirm appointees at the EPA, USDA, and White House who are supportive of Iowa’s biofuels economy. If an EPA administrator continues to abuse the SRE waiver system on Theresa’s watch, she will file legislation to ensure such waivers need congressional approval.

Theresa supports urgent, dedicated economic relief for Iowa’s biofuels industry, which Senator Ernst has still failed to deliver during this pandemic, choosing instead to sign a letter urging COVID-19 relief that would benefit fossil fuel companies.

We must establish E-15 as a meaningful national standard. That means returning to the initial structure of the biofuels infrastructure program and increasing investments, so retailers and consumers across the country actually have access to higher blends of ethanol at modernized pumping systems.

Additionally, we need to increase research to expand the use of biofuels in aviation and marine vessels. This has the potential to dramatically expand new markets for Iowa’s biofuels industry and farmers, while also making the United States less reliant on foreign oil.

Leveling the Playing Field: Iowa’s farmers are hardworking and independent, but too often they get the short end of the stick. Theresa supports reforms that empower our farmers and put more money in their pockets.

As increasing costs for inputs and decreasing gains from outputs have hurt farmers, Theresa will prioritize lowering the cost of seeds for crops. We must increase publicly-funded research at land grant universities like Iowa State, which should be home to the development of the next generation of high-performing seeds and other breakthroughs in agricultural technology. When these new technologies become available to the public, they will spur entrepreneurship, competition and lower seed prices for farmers.

Theresa also supports increasing price transparency and strengthening the tools authorized in The Packers and Stockyards Act to promote giving producers a better price for their livestock.

We also need more investments in local processing. Prioritizing the growth of local processing capacity will provide more competition and additional markets for producers. This will make the overall system more resilient to the shocks during a crisis like a pandemic.

While Iowa’s farmers are suffering, Senator Ernst has taken over $2 million from corporate PACs, including PAC donations from big corporations owned by companies and investors in China. She also voted for a massive tax giveaway that benefited those corporations, while adding $2 trillion to the national debt. Theresa isn’t taking a dime of corporate PAC money and supports putting Iowans first. Theresa will use the confirmation process for members of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which should be applying more scrutiny over foreign investments in agriculture, to push its members to aggressively pursue policies that prioritize the interests of American agriculture.

Leading in Conservation Economic Opportunities: In addition to harmful policies from Washington, Iowa’s farmers are facing changing weather patterns and devastating floods, while Iowa’s water gets dirtier. Theresa believes we need to take urgent climate action and ensure farmers have a seat at the table. She supports partnering with farmers, leaders in U.S. agriculture, and nonprofit foundations to ensure that the United States becomes the first country in the world to have a net zero agricultural industry.

That’s going to require financial incentives and investments to create new streams of revenue for farmers engaging in conservation and promoting renewable energy. This will lead to enormous new economic opportunities for our farmers — including improved soil health, sequestering and storing carbon, and capturing and converting methane to use and sell as fuel and energy. This will also create new conservation and energy markets for our farmers, shorten supply chains, boost local processors, benefit local retailers and manufacturers and launch new businesses.

Additionally, the long-term improvements to our land, air and water have the potential to create outdoor recreation opportunities in rural Iowa with increased hunting, fishing, biking and hiking for all Iowans.

Rural Opportunity: Iowa’s farmers deserve to live and raise their families in vibrant, growing communities, with more economic opportunities for future generations. That means investments in rural health care, including protecting community hospitals and expanding telehealth services, along with ensuring quality public schools. As Theresa outlined in her “Small Towns, Bigger Paychecks” plan, we also need to create more rural economic opportunity by expanding access to capital for small businesses and a robust infrastructure package that expands rural high-speed broadband, along with debt-free community college and more apprenticeships. That should include investments in Rural Business Investment Companies and the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund. We also need to expand USDA loans for affordable housing. Unlike Senator Ernst, Theresa will take action to ensure there is once again a dedicated USDA Undersecretary of Agriculture for Rural Development, which will streamline these necessary investments in our rural communities.

We also need to support policies to encourage biobased manufacturing. Similar to its role as a leader in the ethanol industry, Iowa has the agricultural capacity to become a national hub for manufacturing the next generation of biobased products that can be sold around the world, creating good-paying jobs across rural Iowa.