Texas Commissioner of Agriculture Sid Miller gained national notoriety late in the election cycle for a tweet in which the "c-word" was used to described Hillary Clinton, but the shortlisted ag secretary contender may have a different "c-word" problem.
At Politico, Ian Kullgren reports in Trump team sees flurry of activity on Ag secretary spot:
Former Texas A&M University President Elsa Murano and former California Lt. Gov. Abel Maldonado are traveling to Florida to discuss the position with Trump in person on Wednesday. Meanwhile, Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller is scheduled to travel to Mar-a-Lago on Friday to meet with incoming White House chief of staff Reince Priebus and chief strategist Steve Bannon, POLITICO has learned. . . .
Miller carries heavy baggage for someone who’s been in statewide office just two years. A few days before the election this year, Miller called Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton the c-word on Twitter. He later blamed a staff member for the post. . . .
Given the revolt of the potty mouths this year, Bluestem gravely doubts that c-word could cause trouble for the incorrect Commissioner Miller. Rather, we think another four-letter c-word allegedly in Miller's lexicon could generate consternation among Midwest senators: corn.
On June 7, 2014, a Texas Republican working on energy transportation issues tweeted:
Ag Comm Cand Sid Miller on ethanol, "It's wrong to pour good corn whiskey in your gas tank". Thanks @MillerForTexas for standing up for TX!
— James Beauchamp (@JBeauchampTX) June 7, 2014
We've contacted Mr. Beauchamp for more information on the context of the tweet, since rural Minnesota prairie bloggers aren't exactly in the inner circle of Texas energy and ag politics.
Why corn matters
A flurry of conflicting reports suggest that as Trump surrounds himself with oil-industry figures from Texas, his campaign pledge to support the ethanol industry and the renewable fuel standard (RFS) it loves might be left behind in the tycoon rapture that his cabinet is shaping up to be.
Witness a few articles published in the past few days. In a Capitol Chatter blog item, Forum News report Don Davis wrote Tuesday under the subhead "Branstad: Trump likes ethanol":
Many Midwestern corn farmers, who voted big-time for Donald Trump, worried the next president may be picking key aides who would cut ethanol requirements.
Not to worry, Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad said. Branstad, Trump’s pick for ambassador to China, said that Trump himself reassured him that the likely next Environmental Protection Agency chief will support ethanol.
Trump’s EPA pick is Scott Pruitt, a strong oil backer, but Politico reports that on a Des Moines, Iowa, visit Trump assured the governor that “he’s gonna be for ethanol.”
Branstad said: “I think that was a condition that he basically laid out when he appointed him. Trump is a pretty blunt, direct guy and that was reassuring to me.”
On the same day, Mario Parker reported in Trump adviser is RFS skeptic; Business mogul Carl Icahn says others on 'Trump Team' more skeptical on ethanol law:
Billionaire Carl Icahn, a special adviser to Donald Trump and a skeptic of the U.S. ethanol mandate, said there are others on the president-elect’s team who have even deeper criticisms the program.
Icahn repeated criticism of the credit trading program that regulators and refiners use to track compliance with federal biofuel consumption quotas. While he hasn’t expressed opposition to renewable fuel use, “there are people on the Trump team that believe ethanol itself does very little” in helping the environment, Icahn said Tuesday in a telephone interview, while declining to provide further details.
“It’s a black cesspool of trading if there ever was one,” Icahn said. . . .
Read the rest at The Farmer. Last week, an ag market analyst was even more harsh in a column published in the Spencer (IA) Daily Reporter:
The Wall Street Journal headline read, "Trumps sends mixed signals on ethanol.” I don't know why they made Trump plural in that headline but they did. I also don't see where the signals are being mixed when everyone he has nominated for domestic posts in his administration so far are anti-Renewable Fuel Standard and anti-ethanol.
Scott Pruitt (Environmental Protection Agency), Rick Perry (Department of Energy), Ryan Zinke (Department of Interior), Rex Tillerson (Department of State) and Carl Icahn (in the background) ... do you mean to tell me that big oil got all these guys into the Trump administration and he didn't owe them anything!? If you wanted to screw the RFS and ethanol over wouldn't this be your A-team to do that? Trump claims to support ethanol and the RFS but then appointed all these guys who have spent most of their adult lives working for big oil interests trying to undermine biofuels to positions of power.
These are the guys behind the miss-information campaign to discredit ethanol that I have spent a lot of effort fighting against. . . .
This tension may not make for great energy or ag policy, but calf-roping Sid Miller has "the look" and caustic personality to be cast in a role in the Trump administration. Lovely for Texas--but perhaps Minnesota's corn growers may be forced to plant something else if the rug is pulled out from the idea of corn as fuel.
Screengrab: The 2014 tweet.
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