Online Advertising Blitz Ahead of Senate EPW Hearing Latest in ACCF’s Sustained Campaign Spotlighting Failed Ethanol Mandate’s Negative Impacts
WASHINGTON, D.C. (Feb. 19, 2016) – A new online ad launched today, sponsored by American Council for Capital Formation (ACCF), highlighting corn ethanol’s diminished political influence. The digital ad, “Then vs. Now”, will appear across a number of online mediums in the greater Washington, D.C. media market in the run up to and through Wednesday’s Senate hearing on the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS).
Following the corn ethanol lobby’s defeat in Iowa earlier this year, the new ad contrasts commentary and news analysis from when corn dominated the landscape to its weakened power now, reflecting the mandate’s failure to achieve its promised benefits.
“The emerging consensus, as shown now even in Iowa, is that Washington’s corn ethanol experiment has failed,” said George David Banks, Executive Vice President of ACCF. “With the Senate environment committee conducing oversight of the program this week, we hope that Congress has received the message loud and clear and finally put an end to this decade old political boondoggle. As our video demonstrates, the landscape has dramatically shifted and all that is left is for Congress to do its job.”
The ad opens with scenes of high-profile political pundits speaking to the once-held beliefs that “politicians wouldn’t dare challenge the power of the ethanol mandate if they wanted to get anywhere in Iowa,” and then transitions to today’s political reality that ethanol’s power is diminished and “overstated.” The ad features commentary from:
- MSNBC’s Chris Hayes: “The unambiguous loser was ethanol.”
- Bloomberg Politics’ Mark Halperin: “The strength of the ethanol issue, the power of it is overstated.”
- MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell: “You can win in Iowa without genuflecting to king corn.”
Watch it here:
MORE INFORMATION
- VIDEO: After Corn Ethanol’s Crushing Defeat, Will Congress Repeal Mandate?
- ICYMI: New ACCF Research Confirms Ethanol No Longer the Third Rail of Iowa Politics
- New Polling Confirms Most Iowans Don’t Know Candidates’ Positions on Ethanol, and Don’t Care
About the American Council for Capital Formation
For nearly thirty years, the ACCF and its research affiliate, the ACCF Center for Policy Research, have brought the message to U.S. and international policymakers, the media, and the public that a nation’s economic strength and stability depend upon well-thought-out economic, regulatory, and environmental policies to promote capital formation, economic growth, and a higher standard of living for all.
