Barack Obama (D)

Barack Obama (D)

Address:
PO Box 8102
Chicago, IL 60680

For more background on Senator Obama and information about his campaign, visit the NCGA’s Legislative Action Center.

Issues Important to Growers:
Responses to the NCGA candidate questionnaire sent by the Iowa Corn Growers Association to all candidates:

Ethanol and Renewable Fuels

• Do you support continuation of the 51 cent per gallon blenders’ credit for ethanol?
  
  Yes.
  
  
• Do you support continuation of the 54 cent per gallon ethanol import tariff?
  
  Yes.
  
  
• Will you support the federal Renewable Fuels Standard of 7.5 billion gallons, and increased use of renewable fuels on the national level?
  
  Yes.
  
  
• Will you support maximum funding for the Department of Energy’s alternative fuels program, with a focus on E85?
  
  Yes.

Farm Bill:

• What are your views on the next Farm Bill?
  
  
  • Do you support a strong safety net for Iowa farmers?
    
    Yes.
    
    
  • Do you believe that the next Farm Bill must be trade compliant?
    
    Yes, but we must also encourage our trade partners to ensure better access to U.S. goods and promote fair competition.
    
    
  • Will you consider a crop revenue insurance program as an element of the next Farm Bill, instead of solely a price-based safety net?
    
    Yes.
    
    
• Do you support full funding for a crop insurance program at rate levels sufficient to induce crop insurance, and designed to avoid the need for disaster assistance?

I would like to see a better, permanent mechanism to encourage wider use of crop insurance and to avoid ad hoc disaster assistance measures which are challenging to get enacted.

Trade:

• Do you support continuing Trade Promotion Authority for the office of the President?

While I believe increased trade can help create wealth, I would not support Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) without changes in the rules that govern it. TPA allows Congress to exercise its constitutional authority over trade by retaining final control over the approval of agreements, while giving the President additional negotiating leverage with trading partners by assuring them that a final agreement will not be changed by Congress once it is signed. Unfortunately, President Bush has abused the authority granted by Congress in 2002. He refused to consult with Democrats as the agreements were being negotiated. He would not include strong labor and environmental protections. TPA authority has to include effective Congressional consultation, as well as meaningful protections for labor and environmental standards.

• Please include any other information you believe the Iowa Corn Growers Association membership should know about you, including positions of leadership, sponsorship of bills, or positions on other agricultural issues not otherwise listed on this form.

All Americans have a stake in agriculture. It remains important to the future of America and our economy, defense, energy policy, trade, and humanitarian assistance. Americans are paying less than 10% of their disposable income on food, the lowest of any country in history. We all have the agricultural sector to thank for that. While USDA and rural policy started with Lincoln, FDR was the last strong advocate in the White House. I will be a strong advocate for agriculture.

Throughout my time in the U.S. Senate, I have been a strong supporter of expanding ethanol usage so that we grow more of our energy in the Midwest, rather than importing it from the Middle East. Because of legislation I championed, gas stations are now eligible for tax credits for installing E85 ethanol refueling pumps. This incentive will help create the infrastructure to support more flex-fuel vehicles. I also sponsored legislation requiring oil companies that made at least $1 billion in profits in the first quarter of 2006 to invest at least 1 percent of their total reported first quarter 2006 profits into installing E85 pumps. Finally, I successfully authorized $40 million to bring a combined flexible fuel vehicle and hybrid car to the market within five years.

I have also worked with Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN) to introduce the American Fuels Act, which that would increase domestic production, distribution, and use of biofuels, including expanded manufacture of flexible fuel vehicles, tax credits for biofuels, and a nationwide distribution infrastructure.

Recently, I worked with Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) to introduce legislation creating a National Low Carbon Fuel Standard. The standard would require that all transportation fuels sold in the U.S. contain 5 percent less carbon by 2015 and 10 percent less carbon by 2020. The legislation would spur significant investment in renewable fuels such as corn ethanol.

For more information on Sen. Obama’s positions, visit his website: http://origin.barackobama.com/issues/.

Selected Media Quotes/Public Positions

Capital Gains Taxes

• In February 2006, Sen. Hillary Clinton co-sponsored and Sen. Barack Obama supported a proposal to cancel those tax cuts in 2009 and 2010 and devote the $47 billion in revenue to military spending. (Investor’s Business Daily)
  
  
• Supports increases in capital gains and dividend tax rates to as much as 28%. (CNBC.com, “Your Money Your Vote: The Issues,” November 12, 2007)

Estate Tax

• "We should keep the estate tax at the very reasonable level it will be in 2009 and should not repeal it. By doing that, we can eliminate the estate tax for 99.7 percent of all taxpayers without expecting ordinary families to finance unnecessary tax cuts for billionaire heirs like Paris Hilton. Complete repeal of the estate tax would cost more than $1 trillion over the first 10 years at a time when we have much greater priorities."  (Des Moines Register, November 12, 2007)

• Two higher-level personal income tax brackets would be restored, and tax rates on dividends and capital gains would return to Clinton-era levels. Also, the estate tax would be retained with a $7 million exemption, rather than repealed, campaign officials said.  (Des Moines Register, May 30, 2007)

• "Repealing the tax would cost one trillion dollars, with a T, one trillion dollars," he said. "The only way you can eliminate the estate tax is to make up for the trillion dollars."  (Kankakee (IA) Daily Journal, September 23, 2006)

• Voted NO on permanently repealing the `death tax`.  (Death Tax Repeal Permanency Act; Bill HR 8; vote number 2006-164, June 8, 2006)

Ethanol and Renewable Fuels

• Q. You are a strong supporter of both corn and cellulosic ethanol, both of which would get a major boost from your proposed National Low Carbon Fuel Standard. How, specifically, will you structure policies that transition the U.S. away from corn ethanol and toward cellulosic?
  Obama: “No single feedstock is going to get us to energy independence, and none will be the perfect solution -- each faces its own challenges. Corn-starch ethanol provides a critically important bridge toward energy independence and corn remains a strong part of the domestic biofuels industry. But developing greater volumes of cellulosics is a critical next step in domestic biofuel development, and is the key component of my Low Carbon Fuel Standard bill…My National Low Carbon Fuel Standard provides a way for us to better understand the impacts of an advanced biofuels industry on the environment, so that as we move forward on cellulosics and other domestic fuels we do so responsibly.” (Grist & Outside, Interview by Amanda Griscom Little, July 30, 2007)

• "Every American should have the choice to fill up their car with E85 at any fueling station. And oil companies should stop standing in the way and join us in making this happen. If the big oil companies would devote just 1 percent of their first quarter profits this year to install E85 pumps, more than 7,000 service stations would be able to serve E85 to hungry motorists."  (FactCheck.org, quote from April 3, 2006 speech)

• Obama will support requiring that 20% of the nation's power supply comes from renewable sources like wind, solar, biomass & geothermal. He will increase CAFE to 40 mpg for cars. He will create a Renewable Fuels Standard that requires that a percentage of our fuel supply is provided by fuels such as ethanol. (ObamaforIllinois.com, May 2, 2004)
  
  
• "First, we should ramp up the renewable fuel standard and create an alternative diesel standard in this country so that by 2025, 65 billion gallons of alternative fuels per year will be blended into the petroleum supply. Second, Washington should lead the way on energy independency by making sure that every single automobile the government purchases is a flexible-fuel vehicle - starting today. When it becomes possible in the coming years, we should make sure that every government car is a plug-in hybrid as well.  Third, I'm supporting legislation that would make sure every single new car in America is a flexible-fuel vehicle within a decade. Currently it costs manufacturers just $100 to add these tanks to each car. But we can do them one better. If they install flexible-fuel tanks in their cars before the decade's up, the government should provide them a $100 tax credit to do it - so there's no excuse for delay." (Remarks to Governor’s Ethanol Coalition, February 28, 2006)

Farm Bill:

• “I applaud Chairman Harkin for his tireless efforts on this bill, and for gaining important ground on many of the priorities for our family farmers. The bill maintains a strong safety net for family farmers, and provides more funding for conservation and nutrition and rural development. By increasing funding for renewable energy, the legislation recognizes those farmers who are working to lessen our dependence on foreign oil. I am pleased that it includes a provision I cosponsored to expand E-85 fuel infrastructure to help the ethanol and biofuels industry succeed. (Senate office statement following Senate Ag Committee farm bill mark up, October 25, 2007)
  
  
• "It’s time for us to make some changes to the Farm Bill so we spend fewer resources subsidizing corporate megafarms and more time and resources supporting family farmers and rural America,” said Obama.  “Specifically, we should lower the payment limit to $250,000 annually and make sure those payments go to farmers who need them --  not to millionaire farmers who are relying on the American taxpayers to protect their multi-million dollar profits… it’s about the future for these kids who are going to graduate from Tama High.  It’s about whether they can find opportunity here at home.  It’s about whether they’ll have a government that fights for them, so they can dream without limit.”  (Cattle Network, August 17, 2007)

Trade:

• Obama supports the idea of simplifying international trade, and he warned the union crowd that "we're not going to stop globalization in its tracks." But he spoke out against trade agreements that make it easier for other countries to do business in the United States but not for U.S. companies to do business overseas.  He called for updating the North American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico and Canada to guarantee workers have the right to organize and that they get training for new jobs when their old ones are eliminated. (Associated Press, October 6, 2007)

• [Obama Op-ed] "If a post-Fidel government begins opening Cuba to democratic change, the United States (the president working with Congress) is prepared to take steps to normalize relations and ease the embargo that has governed relations between our countries for the last five decades. That message coming from my administration in bilateral talks would be the best means of promoting Cuban freedom." (Miami Herald, August 21, 2007)

• On trade policy, he would strengthen enforcement of trade agreements to better protect U.S. farmers from high tariffs and other unfair practices… He joked about how little he understood farm issues when he was elected to represent his Chicago neighborhood in the Illinois Legislature.  (Mason City (IA) Globe-Gazette, Iowa, July 28, 2007)

• John Edwards and Barack Obama have both denounced NAFTA and called for its renegotiation. None of the three supported moves to extend the president's “fast-track” trade negotiation authority, which expired last month. (The Economist, July 19, 2007)