Clinton meets with ethanol representatives

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with representatives of Iowa’s ethanol industry Wednesday as part of the first trip of her campaign for the president.

Clinton, the Democratic frontrunner, met with Iowa former secretary of agriculture and lieutenant governor Patty Judge and Bruce Rohwer, director of the Iowa Corn Growers Association, among other Democrats.

{mosads}Judge is also a co-chairwoman of America’s Renewable Future, an ad-hoc group advocating for 2016 presidential contenders to endorse the federal ethanol blending mandate.

“We had the opportunity to talk about issues facing Iowa — renewable fuels being one of them,” Judge said in a statement after the meeting in Marshalltown, Iowa.

“Secretary Clinton was extremely receptive and I feel encouraged by her comments about the Renewable Fuel Standard,” she said.

Rohwer also said he was happy with the meeting.

“I was able to thank Secretary Clinton for her past support of the RFS and I am confident future conversations will be just as positive,” he said in the statement.

Clinton opposed the ethanol mandate in the Senate in 2002 and called it a “tax.”

But when she ran in the 2008 presidential election, Clinton was strongly supportive of the renewable standard, which is widely supported in Iowa, whose economy depends large on the corn that makes most ethanol.

She said ethanol provides one of the best chances toward “limiting our dependence on foreign oil.”