(The Center Square) – Illinois U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth said she’s “incredulous” over halting the original federal government spending bill that included a policy that would have allowed for ethanol to be mixed with gasoline year-round.
“That’s what Americans want us to do is compromise and there are Republicans who would vote for it. So, it would pass in the House and the Senate if [U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana,] will, you know, grow a bit of a backbone and stand up to Elon Musk,” Duckworth, D-Schaumburg, told ABC News in December.
State Rep. Chris Miller, R-Oakland, said if Democrats were serious about helping farmers, they wouldn’t have shoved the ethanol policy in with the original continuing resolution.
“There may have been one good idea laced with 10 other bad ideas and this outrage that they claim to be expressing is disingenuous and it is political theater,” said Miller. “I think the American people spoke loudly in the election that they want us to return to some type of fiscal sanity. And so the idea that the Democrats are incredulous, they know that this was nothing but a bill that was packed with pork.”
Miller said he thinks if Democrats would have presented a clean bill that was a single issue bill like Duckworth’s, it would have passed.
“But when they packed it in there with a whole lot of other bad ideas, that’s when it became a problem,” said Miller. “[President-elect Donald Trump] has always been very supportive of E15 and the overarching goal is for the USA to be energy independent. What that means is we produce oil, we produce ethanol, we take advantage of all the natural resources that we have domestically in order to gain our independence.”
Congressional support for the original bill tanked after social media posts from Musk and a statement from Trump called for the bill to be slimmed down.
Miller, a farmer, said if Duckworth and Democrats are serious about helping farmers, they’d address inflation.
“Because of the velocity of money that they’re shoving into the economy, it’s caused massive inflation. Inflation is killing the farmer more than whether you got 15% more ethanol or not,” Miller said. “Government spending is out of control. Right now the price of corn is $4.40. And I’ve farmed for almost 50 years, and I would have never thought that we would be able to sell corn for that price.”
The federal spending bill was slimmed down to just over 100 pages from the original 1,500-page bill. Miller said despite the bill including an ethanol gasoline provision, it was bad policy.
“It’s not what the American people voted for, and it’s not what I want as a farmer. I want some fiscal restraint and some sanity brought back to the government,” said Miller, whose wife Mary Miller is an Illinois Republican congresswoman.
The state representative compared Duckworth’s policy inclusion to Illinois’ “lame duck session.” According to Miller, the federal spending bill shouldn’t include policy provisions, but rather it should just be an appropriations bill.
“You know, it’s kind of like what we’re getting ready to head into with the lame duck session. I mean, it was instituted for emergencies, and I think that a lot of what they did in their spending package was supposed to take care of emergencies, and then they just can’t help themselves,” said Miller. “So, I mean, it shows you how much pork was in there, because it was a 1,500-plus page bill that nobody read, and the final bill that came to the floor was just a tick over 100 pages.”
