“From our standpoint, our position is consistent,” Walker replied. “I talked about not wanting a mandate in Wisconsin as governor. We do not have one. I do not support one. I have not enacted it. I’ve kept it out of the state of Wisconsin. What I said in Iowa was … I think we need to phase it out, but I don’t approve of putting in new mandates.”
In fact, among other things, Walker ran radio ads back in 2006 that decried “mandates from the state or federal government.”
The governor explained Monday that he is now okay with continuing the federal mandates, which require a certain amount of corn-based ethanol to be mixed into gasoline, to guarantee that there is “market access,” so that “individual consumers can have the choice about whether they want to consume gasoline with or without ethanol.”
“That’s consistent with where I was at the state level nearly a decade ago,” he said. “You just can’t [phase them out] overnight, all at one time.”
It’s always disheartening to see Republican presidential candidates who have so much promise hit Iowa and become big fans of the ethanol mandates in an effort to suck up to the locals. It’s also purely a byproduct of the way we schedule primaries, giving disproportionate power to two small, sparsely populated states to kick things off.
Walker is flailing here: he’s either for them or he’s not. Advocating for a future phase-out is weak and an obvious attempt to kick the problem down the road.
We get enough of that from current GOP congressional leadership. We’re expecting more from our governors who want to be president.
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