Biofuels

Iowa’s two Republican U.S. senators consider the shift toward electric vehicles a threat to farmers.

Sen. Charles Grassley said last fall that a proposal by Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Rep. Mike Levin of California to end U.S. sales of gaspowered vehicles by 2035 would devastate Iowa.

“This ... would absolutely destroy Iowa’s economy because it’s so dependent on agriculture and agriculture is so dependent on biofuels,” Grassley said.

Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst argues that tax credits for buying electric cars typically go to well-to-do people on the East and West coasts and are propping

up an industry that hurts demand for biofuels.

“It’s not only the move to all-electric vehicles that should have Iowans concerned; it’s the crazy tax breaks that wealthy coastal elites are getting for their electric vehicles,” Ernst states on her Senate website. “I firmly believe Iowa taxpayers shouldn’t be footing the bill for millionaires to get a discount on luxury cars.”

It is true that many who got the $7,500 federal electric vehicle tax credit since its inception in 2009 could afford a car that cost six figures or more. But since then, new models and higher sales have brought economies of scale and lower prices that appeal to more mainstream buyers.

The ethanol industry itself was a beneficiary of a 45-cent-per-gallon tax credit that provided about $30 billion

to help the industry get established before that expired a decade ago. And farmers who grow commodity crops, such as corn and soybeans, still receive help from the federal government, including subsidized crop insurance costing billions of dollars annually.

Despite assurances the move to electric will be gradual, many farmers see the shift as a threat to their livelihoods and doubt state and federal officials from urban areas will protect rural economies.

“It’s like you’re almost helpless,” said Ed Wiederstein, a semi-retired livestock and grain farmer near Audubon in western Iowa. “It’s like a snowball that goes downhill.”

Joel Levin, executive director of the nonprofit advocacy group Plug In America, said the market will favor electric cars not only for environmental reasons but also because they’re high performance.

“It’s not like Californians wants you to eat your broccoli. These cars are fun to drive,” Levin said. “People don’t drive Teslas just because it’s good for the environment. They drive Teslas because it’s a sick car.”

Over time, a switch to electric vehicles likely will force farmers to adapt, said Chad Hart, an agriculture economist at Iowa State University. Farmers in states such as Iowa and Illinois still will mainly grow corn and soybeans because the soil and climate are perfect, but farmers elsewhere will raise other crops, he said.

“Agriculture is always shifting the crop mix to fit whatever markets offer the best opportunity,” he said.