Fact-checking claims in President Joe Biden’s visit to Iowa

Joe Biden’s April 12 appearance in the small western Iowa town of Menlo, population 345, dropped the president in a state that Donald Trump carried handily in the 2016 and 2020 elections. Rural development is a key need in Iowa, and biofuel production is a big financial deal because Iowa ranks tops in the country in producing biofuels.

It figured, then, that biofuel production was one of main topics Biden spoke about in Menlo, located just off Interstate 80 in a county that gave Trump two-thirds of its vote in the 2020 presidential election. Biden also touted his infrastructure plan that was passed and signed into law last year.

A review of his remarks reveals that Biden relied on federal and industry reports to stake claims while announcing that his Environmental Protection Agency would start allowing the sale of E15 gasoline – a blend that has 15% biofuels and 85% petroleum-based fuel – during summer months, starting this year.

Here is a look at some of Biden’s claims:

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reports that replacing fossil fuels with biofuels can reduce dependence on unstable foreign suppliers.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported that the U.S. contributed to 20% of the world’s oil production in 2020 while also being responsible for 20% of the world’s consumption. Russia contributed 11%. That leaves 69% of the world’s oil supply produced by other countries.

Republicans in farm states like Iowa have assailed Biden for cutting the amount of gasoline the federal government requires to be mixed with plant-based biofuels. Democrats, too, have pushed for biofuels support, regardless of who is president. Iowa has a stake in fuel dependency, leading the nation in producing biofuels from farm crops, with the capacity to produce 4.6 billion gallons. That is double the 2.3 billion in the No. 2 state, Nebraska.

"Decisions this year by the Biden administration have shown the president clearly favors Big Oil interests over the interest of Iowa farmers," Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said in a prepared statement ahead of Biden’s Iowa visit, in which Grassley called on Biden to allow summer sales of E15 fuel. 

Biden delivered on the summer sales, "The Environmental Protection Agency is planning to issue an emergency waiver to allow E15 gasoline that uses more ethanol from home-grown crops to be sold across the United States this summer in order to increase fuel supplies." 

E15 sales have been prohibited from June 1 to Sept. 15 in some states because some researchers believe it contributes to poor air quality during that time. Iowa Attorney Tom Miller, a Democrat, and Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt, a Republican, and a bipartisan collection of government and industry leaders had asked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to lift the summer ban.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration’s 2022 Annual Energy Outlook report has a section that uses anticipated supply and demand projections for the use of biomass feedstocks for ethanol production, and soy oils and grease for biodiesel needs through 2050.

Biden did not mention his interest in expanding the production of electric-powered automobiles in his Iowa visit, although he has elsewhere, notably in auto producing states, and has drawn criticism for doing so from Republicans in the state. 

The U.S. Energy Information Administration’s 2021 Annual Energy Outlook report, projects that about 79% of new vehicle sales will be powered by liquid fuels — gasoline and blends that include up to 85% ethanol — in 2050. 

Electric cars accounted for 95% of sales in 2020, the report states.

In Iowa, a gallon of E10 gasoline was $3.89 and a gallon of E15 was $3.74 in April, according to user reports. The average price for unleaded regular gas in Iowa was $4.29 a gallon. 

However, the summer sales of E15 fuel will affect only consumers who pump gas at about 1.5% of the country’s 150,000 gas stations because only 2,300 gas stations in the country sell the fuel, the news service Quartz reported. 

The Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations reported on April 8 that the price of food is currently the highest it's been since the time it started recording food costs in 2004. Russia is one of the world’s largest grain producers. Grain is used in common foods such as bread, pasta and cereal. Vegetable oil and cereal – products made with grain – also have gone up, according to U.N.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported that the average price of gasoline went from $3.306 in the week of Jan. 17 to $4.091 as of April 11. But data shows that gas prices started to rise from a low point of $1.841 per gallon in April 2020 after they dropped significantly because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

PolitiFact has looked at the level of blame Putin’s invasion of Ukraine shares for rising prices in the United States and found that the invasion could be linked to gas prices jumping upward. But gas prices were rising domestically long before the invasion. 

Reasons include growing demand for gasoline as people return to driving after staying at home during the pandemic and reduced refinery production. 

Gas prices have also gone up internationally, with the BBC reporting that petrol prices hit a record high at $139 a barrel in March, with wholesale gas prices doubling for next-day delivery. The spike came after the U.S. hinted at its ban on Russian oil. 

European countries, however, have not taken steps to ban Russian oil and gas because their supply relies on Russia. As of April 11, European countries were debating a Russian oil embargo in the European Union's next sanction package, according to Reuters. 

As for global food prices, they are rising after the invasion. The U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization reported a 17.9% increase in its March Food Price Index, which averages five commodity group prices — for meat, dairy, cereals, vegetable oils, and sugar — that are weighted with the average export shares. 

The increase was more than the average since June 2021. The Food and Agriculture Organization said the increase was the highest since tracking began in 1990.  

Iowa’s bridges rank worst among the U.S. states by the metric Biden mentioned: the number of structurally deficient bridges. 

According to a 2022 report from the American Road and Transportation Builders Association, Iowa has 4,504 bridges that are considered structurally deficient, or in "poor" condition, by the Federal Highway Administration. 

Iowa has more than 1,000 more bridges in poor condition than the next state, Pennsylvania, which has 3,198 bridges with that designation. Illinois comes in third with 2,405. 

As a percentage of bridges, though, West Virginia ranks worst, with 20% of bridges in poor condition versus 19% in Iowa. 

Biden used the opportunity to talk about pending bridge repair in Iowa to tout the infrastructure bill, which he signed into law in 2021. 

The $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act that passed in a bipartisan vote in November covers a wide range of projects that include broadband expansion in rural areas, repairs and construction for bridges, dams, airports and highways. Republicans who voted against the bill or who actively opposed it have announced projects when awarded and have taken credit in some instances for getting a project for Iowa.

Each of Iowa’s Republican congressional members, except for Sen. Chuck Grassley, voted against the infrastructure bill. Grassley and Democratic Rep. Cindy Axne voted for the bill, although Biden only singled out Axne for her vote at his Menlo appearance.

Adequate data to back this statement is not readily available. Inflation has been growing since April 2021. The February rate of 7.9% follows a trend from 7.5% in January and 7% in December, before Putin’s invasion.

"Food prices increased 7.9% for the year ended February 2022, the largest 12-month advance since July 1981," the March 15 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ consumer price index report stated. "Energy prices rose 25.6% from February 2021 to February 2022, while prices for all items less food and energy rose 6.4%."

The jobs data shows up in a report by Agriculture and Biofuels Consulting, a Pennsylvania firm operated by economist John Urbanchuk. Urbanchuk reported that the ethanol industry was responsible for sustaining 407,416 jobs that pumped $52.1 billion into the U.S. economy in 2021. That was up from 349,000 jobs that created $43 billion for the U.S. economy in 2019, the same company’s report for that year showed. 

In these reports, 258,585 of the ethanol-related jobs existed in agriculture in 2021, up from 241,000 in 2019. 

Ethanol production is not labor intensive, though, the reports stated. Production, itself, required fewer than 9,000 jobs in 2021, although indirect and induced jobs – those created when ethanol industry workers spend money on goods and services – brought that total to the full-time equivalent of 117,291 jobs, the report for 2021 showed.

The 2022 typical salary for an ethanol plant operator can range from $50,700 a year, according to ZipRecruiter, to $58,430 a year, Glassdoor reports.