Iowa Senate Dem. candidate calls for EPA administrator’s resignation

In Iowa, at a virtual event with former Iowa Governor and U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack and Wapello County educator Melinda Jones last night, businesswoman Theresa Greenfield highlighted and answered questions about her commitment to creating more opportunity throughout rural Iowa, including supporting biofuels. Theresa and Gov. Vilsack laid out how Senator Joni Ernst has failed to fight for Iowa’s farmers and biofuels producers, an issue that has become a key contrast in the race after Theresa called for fossil fuel lobbyist and EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler to resign from the agency over his abuse of the small refinery exemptions that have devastated Iowa’s biofuels industry.

“We need to stop the small refinery exemptions, and we need to have (an administration) that values ethanol,” Greenfield said.

Greenfield says finding ways to expand the use biofuels in aviation and other industries benefits rural communities.

“Just here in 2020, the ethanol industry is expected to have $2.6 billion in losses. These are real dollars,” Greenfield says. “…Plants have been shuttered. People have lost their jobs. These are our friends and neighbor that may have to move from their beloved rural communities to find work.”