Donald Trump’s 2024 Panderama On ethanol in Iowa and Yucca Mountain in Nevada, he tells voters whatever he thinks they want to hear, unlike Ron DeSantis.
President Trump is leading the GOP’s primary polls by 30 points, but maybe he’s more worried about Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis than he lets on. The Iowa State Fair is still a month away, but step right up to Mr. Trump’s political booth, ladies and gentlemen of the primary electorate, and he will tell you whatever he thinks you want to hear.
“I fought for Iowa ethanol like no President in history and ethanol, period, like no President,” Mr. Trump said in Council Bluffs. “Every Iowan also needs to know that Ron DeSantis totally despises Iowa ethanol and ethanol generally.” In Congress, Mr. DeSantis supported ending the Renewable Fuel Standard, or RFS. Mr. Trump called this “his vicious plan to annihilate the Iowa farming industry,” while saying that Mr. DeSantis wants to “outsource every American farming job to a foreign country.”
On Saturday the panderama was in Las Vegas. “DeSanctimonious voted to fund Yucca Mountain as a dumping ground for nuclear waste,” Mr. Trump said. “That’s not just a little area. That stuff, it’s all over the place. What a mess.” As if that were too subtle, Mr. Trump added: “If you don’t mind nuclear waste dumped in your backyard, I suggest you vote for Ron DeSanctimonious.”
Mr. Trump isn’t the first politician who would chug a gallon of ethanol to win the Iowa caucus. Yet Sen. Ted Cruz won in 2016 after supporting a phase out of the RFS. His plan, as he wrote in the Des Moines Register, involved “getting Washington out of the way, and allowing Iowa farmers to sell their product on a fair and level playing field.”
That’s the right conservative policy. The RFS is a distortionary law that dictates how much ethanol and other biofuels must be blended into America’s fuel supply. Refiners who don’t hit the targets must buy credits invented by the government, a cost that can reach hundreds of millions of dollars a year. In what other industry would Republican politicians line up to applaud such a cockamamie scheme?
As for Yucca Mountain, does Mr. Trump believe in nuclear energy or not? If he claims the answer is yes, does this noted real-estate man have an alternative site he would like to propose to store radioactive waste? Or has he not given it a moment’s thought, beyond whether it can hurt Mr. DeSantis?
By the way, someone should probably tell Mr. Trump and voters: “The Trump Administration included funds to restart Yucca Mountain licensing in its FY2018, FY2019, and FY2020 budget submissions to Congress,” according to the Congressional Research Service.
Mr. Trump’s fans say he’s willing to fight for what’s right, no matter how unpopular it might be. The reality is that Mr. Trump is more a prisoner of the polling than most of his rivals, because he has so few core beliefs.
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