McCain says no to ethanol support
published:
Sunday | August 10, 2008
Mccain
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP):
Republican presidential candidate John McCain did not mince words Friday at the Iowa State Fair, telling corn producers in the farming state he did not want to subsidise their ethanol but was eager to help market farm products around the world.
"My friends, we will disagree on a specific issue and that's healthy," McCain said as he stood near bales of straw at one of the premier US farming showcases. "I believe in renewable fuels. I don't believe in ethanol subsidies, but I believe in renewable fuels."
McCain has never been shy about speaking against subsidising the crop-based fuel when he is in farm country, though that stand helped to make him unpopular enough in Iowa that he skipped participating in its leadoff presidential caucuses in 2000 and again in 2008.
more ethanol plants under construction
The United States has 134 ethanol plants in 26 states with 77 more under construction or expanding, according to the Renewable Fuels Association, a trade group for the ethanol industry.
This year's corn crop, expected to be a record, is worth about $52 billion.
The Agriculture Department says economic growth in developing countries, tight global grain supplies and demand for ethanol have pushed corn prices to record or near-record prices.
In a brief speech at the fairgrounds - where he viewed a 1,253-pound (568-kilogram) boar named Freight Train and looked for pork chop on a stick, a fair delicacy - McCain pledged to negotiate trade deals favourable to farm commodities.
new TV ad
"My mission and my job as president of the United States will be to make sure every market in the world is open to your products," he said.
Meanwhile, the McCain campaign has released a new TV ad for battleground states that contends Obama would raise taxes on the middle class as well as families, small businesses and the elderly. It repeats the Republican campaign's assertion that Obama would raise taxes on those making $42,000 a year, a figure linked to allowing the Bush administration's tax cuts to expire on schedule in 2010.
Obama maintains that his budget plan is aimed at raising taxes only on those making more than $200,000 a year individually and $250,000 a year as a couple.
The Obama campaign called the new McCain spot "a lie" and "part of the old, tired politics of a party in Washington that has run out of ideas and run out of steam."
