My Weekly Column
For the last three years, the Biden administration has been defined by reckless government spending, rising prices, and crushing red tape and regulations. These misguided policies have fueled inflation and harmed our economy – making life unaffordable for our families, increasing operating costs for our main street businesses, and stifling investment in American jobs and manufacturing.
My Weekly Column: Completing my third biannual 36 County Tour
Agriculture is the economic engine of Iowa, the livelihood of farmers and their families, and the lifeblood of our rural communities across the 4th Congressional District. Our producers work long hours in all types of weather conditions to grow the food and produce the fuel that our country and the world depend on.
Iowa is home to 42 ethanol plants and 11 biodiesel facilities, which annually produce roughly 4.5 billion gallons of ethanol and 410 million gallons of biodiesel respectively. In 2022, homegrown Iowa ethanol and biodiesel contributed $7.2 billion to Iowa’s economy and fueled $3.5 billion in income for Iowa families. Our thriving biofuels industry also supports 57,000 jobs across our state. I’m especially proud that our district – Iowa’s 4th Congressional District – remains the top producer of both ethanol and biodiesel nationwide.
American farmland is some of the most fertile and bountiful in the world. Despite derechos and droughts, nothing obstructs the resilience of our farmers. Our producers work long hours to grow the food and produce the fuel that our families and communities depend on. From cattle feed to homegrown ethanol and biodiesel, Iowa corn and soybeans lower prices at the pump, end our reliance on foreign oil, and support the vitality of the rural communities surrounded by these grains for months out of the year.
Iran has a long and repulsive history of funding terrorism, including the recent attacks by Hamas against the innocent people of Israel. In 1984, Iran was rightfully named a state sponsor of terrorism by the United States and, to this day, continues to finance terror, murder, and crime across the Middle East and around the globe. For decades, Iran has funded terrorist plots by Hamas, Hezbollah, and other despicable organizations to destabilize nations, kill innocent people, and sow division.
On Friday, October 6th, the world watched in horror as Hamas terrorists launched an all-out assault on Israel. Terrorists parachuted into a music festival killing hundreds of innocent people, broke into homes murdering entire families, and in one of the most gruesome displays of evil, murdered innocent babies. The details are sickening, but we cannot turn a blind eye to the atrocities that Hamas has committed and continues to inflict on the innocent people of Israel. The truth must be widely known.
President Biden has abandoned and punished our farmers on every front imaginable. His new WOTUS rule invites federal bureaucrats to saddle Iowa farmers with costly red tape, his electric vehicle mandates threaten the vitality of our biofuels industry, and his economic agenda jeopardizes longstanding provisions in the tax code to strengthen Iowa agriculture.
Over the last three years, I’ve made 226 trips to farms, schools, businesses, police departments, workforce training centers, cooperatives, ethanol plants, and food pantries on my biannual 36 County Tour. At each stop, I have had meaningful conversations with Iowans about their policy priorities at the federal level and real discussions about how we can work together to deliver real results for our families, farmers, small businesses, and rural communities.