Iowa Ag Secretary Bill Northey during a hearing on his nomination.
The Texas senator who won Iowa’s 2016 presidential caucuses has placed a hold on Iowa Ag Secretary Bill Northey’s nomination for a federal job.
Texas Senator Ted Cruz is blocking a vote in the senate on Northey’s nomination to be an undersecretary in the USDA. Cruz is reportedly irked with the way Iowa Senators Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst pressured the EPA Administrator to back off on a plan to reduce the federal biofuels mandate.
Cruz and eight other senators from states that have oil refineries are now asking for a meeting with President Trump. They want to discuss an overhaul of the Renewable Fuels Standard. This group of senators charge the RFS reduces jobs in their states.
Thirty senators — including the two Republican senators from Iowa — were part of the coalition that pressed the Trump Administration to favor ethanol and biodiesel.