Financial and agriculture-market expert John Tsitrian notes that the Trump Administration continues to grind South Dakota’s corn farmers into the dirt by handing out more favors to fossil-fuel refiners. Tsitrian wonders why our Congressional delegation continues to namby-pamb in the face of their own party leader’s assault on a vital South Dakota industry:
But, as trade war-fatigued soybean producers found out, Trump’s priorities don’t put farmers very high up on his list of considerations. U.S. reps from this part of the country have been crying foul, but to little avail. Our all-GOP congressional delegation hasn’t done much good. Senator John Thune re-states the obvious, complaining that “the oil lobby is strong” without criticizing the president that he’s beholden to. His colleague Senator Mike Rounds co-sponsored a bill to make the waiver process more transparent . . . meaning what, I don’t know. Our Congressman, Dusty Johnson, called for an investigation into the process, though I doubt that Robert Mueller is available just now. Namby-pamby as these reactions are, I suppose the lip service plays well to some extent here at home. Have they stopped or even slowed down the waiver process? No.
For a genuinely outraged and politically courageous reaction, our federal reps should look across the border to Iowa. Sounding off the way an elected official is supposed to, GOP Senator Charles Grassley has said, “Not only is the government not keeping its word but it also in a sense screwing the farmer.” The outspoken Iowan was responding to yesterday’s news that the U.S.’s largest ethanol maker, POET, is closing its 92-million gallon a year plant in Cloverdale, Indiana. A POET spokesman blames the closure on “mismanagement of the ethanol mandate.” Sioux Falls-based POET is also reducing production at half of its 28 plants scattered across 7 states. That’s a lot of corn that won’t be needed for the foreseeable future [John Tsitrian, “Trump’s Ethanol Waivers Are Punishing South Dakota’s Corn Producers. Can Our Congressional Reps Provide Something More Than Lip Service About This?” The Constant Commoner, 2019.08.22].
We can only hope challengers to Congressman Johnson and Senator Rounds will read Tsitrian’s post out loud to the voters and get South Dakotans thinking about the real impacts to the South Dakota economy of not standing up to Donald Trump.
This ought to help considerably, eh? Paywall
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-08-23/china-to-soon-unveil-tariffs-on-u-s-says-global-times-hu
China is raising tariffs on soybeans and autos from Drumpfland.
Our SD delegation huffs and puffs and paces and shows concern, but they do what they are told and stay in line. Thanks, guys! !@#%^&*!
Could ethanol be used as an alternative fuel for crop drying? The BTUs are less, so you may have to do it longer or do it in parallel with something else. But the idea is to find an alternative when demand in the fuel sector is not as good as you would like it to be.
Slick Mike is on board with draft dodger trump and Moscow John all their to. and dusty will blow smoke and fall in line and do what he is told.
Ethanol plant in Merrill, iowa (between Soo city and Lemars) has been temporarily idled again due to lack of corn. Not the first downtime. Probably won’t be the last.
We keep losing farms and farmers where will the corn come from? Drumpf is not helping the situation by calling Xi our enemy or his alleged policies.
It is time Ethanol stand on it’s own. If ethanol was useful and PEOT believed in it they would require all the energy to produce it to be Ethanol. Or is you can not produce it without fossil fuel..
Time to stop the mandates Let the free market rule. The market force will determine if Ethanol is viable.
Every refinery should have a wavier
Thin, Roundy and Dirty don’t represent SD’s citizens, yet they keep winning overwhelmingly. Here’s why:
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Start with a cage containing five monkeys. Inside the cage, hang a banana on a string and place a set of stairs under it. Before long, a monkey will go to the stairs and start to climb towards the banana. As soon as he touches the stairs, spray all of the other monkeys with cold water.
After a while, another monkey makes an attempt with the same result all the other monkeys are sprayed with cold water. Pretty soon, when another monkey tries to climb the stairs, the other monkeys will try to prevent it.
Now, put away the cold water. Remove one monkey from the cage and replace it with a new one. The new monkey sees the banana and wants to climb the stairs. To his surprise and horror, all of the other monkeys attack him. After another attempt and attack, he knows that if he tries to climb the stairs, he will be assaulted.
Next, remove another of the original five monkeys and replace it with a new one. The newcomer goes to the stairs and is attacked. The previous newcomer takes part in the punishment with enthusiasm! Likewise, replace a third original monkey with a new one, then a fourth, then the fifth. Every time the newest monkey takes to the stairs, he is attacked.
Most of the monkeys that are beating him have no idea why they were not permitted to climb the stairs or why they are participating in the beating of the newest monkey.
After replacing all the original monkeys, none of the remaining monkeys have ever been sprayed with cold water. Nevertheless, no monkey ever again approaches the stairs to try for the banana. Why not? Because as far as they know that’s the way it’s always been done around here.
And that, my friends, is why a GOP voter is always a GOP voter in SD.
Monkey see, monkey in deep doo doo.
If ethanol should stand on its own two feet, so should the oil industry, which gets subsidized to the tune of $20 billion/year. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2018/jul/30/america-spends-over-20bn-per-year-on-fossil-fuel-subsidies-abolish-them
Should have said “fossil fuel industry.”
Why not put those billions into electric cars, who needs oil when you have that? Use corn for what the corn gods intended, food and drinking alcohol.
I saw Governor Noem on Fox News within the last week and she talked about the tariffs and the struggle that farmers are in with weather and low crop prices, but she failed to mention one word about the illegal refinery exemptions given out by Trump’s EPA which have contributed to lower crop prices now and in the future. If she doesn’t have the guts to look out for South Dakota farmers when it matters and call out the oil men making the decisions at the EPA contrary to law, she should resign and go back to Washington. She is not representing our state’s interests if she can’t call out this type of blatant disregard for the law. Something tells me if this was Obama’s EPA issuing illegal waivers to giant oil companies, she would have been screaming on Fox about the harm to our state.
I saw that too Darin. She did a good job of looking cute and being agreeable.
I’m trying to say something nice and that’s all I’ve got.
so which one is the monkey slick Mike or photo op thune
Jerry,
How does making more alcohol for consumption enhance the Democrats’ arguments for better health care? It sure makes an argument for needing a lot more health care…
It would be better to develop alternative uses in biobased products that displace the use of petroleum. Technically ethanol is also a source of hydrogen.
My uncle used to drink a shot of corn whiskey mixed with prune juice and two raw eggs, first thing every morning. He did this for all of his cowboy life, from the early days in Gregory and Tripp County, when it was all open range. I used to find it amusing to watch his belly jump when he drank that concoction. He lived until his 80’s and then died quickly. Tough as nails, but with a Constitution that most would envy.
So, I think alcohol in moderation, can be good for your system. My dear uncle would’ve agreed.
Ethanol wastes water as it takes more gallons of water to produce that fuel, while our planet dries up and needs food rather than waste.
Gary Wertish is president of the Minnesota Farmers Union and the one AG Sec Sonny Perdue was responding to when he uttered his pathetic excuse for a joke about farmers in the basement = whine cellar.
Excellent Strib columnist Lori Sturdevant interviewed Wertish at the FU MN State Fair booth. Here are a few Wertish quotes:
“If we’re [farm orgs] not going to speak up now, when so many farmers are hurting, what are we in these [farm organization] positions for?”
” Going it alone, the president has boxed himself into a corner and doesn’t have a way to get out of it. This is turning into long-term pain for our farmers and rural communities.”
” The Chinese market that U.S. farmers spent their own checkoff dollars to build has likely been permanently lost and our credibility is shot with other countries. … I don’t care what party you belong to. This is not good for the country.”
“He said he’s sounding an alarm now not because an election is looming, but to pressure Trump to resume negotiations with China and back away from tariffs.
” In May this year, the president promised another $16 billion. Wertish said those payments are bound to be resented by other Americans who are also hurting because of tariffs but are getting no special relief.
“We need decent prices, not payments. Farmers just want their markets back.”
“Wertish’s pitch: Come to the Farmers Union Coffee Shop for the BLTs. Linger to learn about what Trump’s trade war is doing to the farmers who raise the pork and grow the lettuce, tomatoes and grain. And think about what can be done to assure that Minnesota farmers don’t suffer crippling collateral damage.”
Lindsey Graham says the we should suck it up and take the pain, as it is Democrats fault and the pantie waste republicans always do what Democrats tell them to do as republicans are such bed wetters.
“Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) acknowledged on Sunday that the mounting trade war between the U.S. and China will hurt consumers, despite repeated assertions to the contrary from President Donald Trump and his administration.
“The Democrats for years have been claiming that China should be stood up to,” he said during an appearance on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “Now Trump is and we just got to accept the pain that comes with standing up to China. How do you get China to change without creating some pain on them and us? I don’t know.”
You do get what Graham is doing, he is calling republicans weak and soft and damn poor business people…finally the truth. So if this causes you to lose your job and your home, blame Democrats for making republicans the sissy party. This still doesn’t explain why China is not buying ag products from us but buying them on the open markets.