Donald Trump's Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt is "about as swampy as you can get," says one GOP senator, adding, "if the president wants to drain the swamp, he needs to take a look at his own cabinet."
Another Republican senator says Pruitt has "betrayed the president" through the policies he is advancing at his EPA post.
Both senators are from Iowa—Joni Ernst and Chuck Grassley, respectively, and their comments, while mainly aimed Pruitt, are a sign of Trump's flagging support in a farm state that favored him by 10 points in 2016.
The senators’ main beef with Pruitt concerns new biofuel policies the EPA plans to unveil that could hurt corn-based ethanol consumption. Under a 13-year-old rule, refiners have been required to use a certain amount of biofuel, usually consisting of corn-based ethanol.
Ethanol advocates, including Iowa’s Republican senators, Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst, have argued that the EPA is undercutting annual biofuel quotas by more liberally exempting refineries from the mandates in response to a federal court ruling last year.
But recent comments from both Ernst and Grassley suggest that patience with Trump is wearing thin in the Hawkeye state, where farmers are also being hit by Trump's escalating trade war.
Grassley, who represents the top ethanol-producing state, has threatened to seek EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt’s resignation if the agency undermines renewable fuel requirements. [...]
Separately, at the Platts Energy Podium in Washington on Tuesday, Senator Joni Ernst, an Iowa Republican, said the administrator is “breaking our president’s promises to farmers.”
“I would like to see the president’s administration upholding his commitment to our American farmers, and right now, support is wavering in Iowa, people are really worried,” Ernst said at the Platts Energy Podium. “We have some young and beginning farmers that just don’t have the types of savings built up they would need to sustain a long period of loss.”
As both Canada and Mexico have announced retaliatory farm tariffs in response to Trump's tariffs, U.S. farmers are expected to see a 5.1 percent drop in profits this year.
Alienating Sen. Grassley and his constituents could also hurt Trump in another area: the Russia inquiry. Grassley, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, has generally worked to keep the panel's investigation from playing too badly for Trump. But Grassley wasn't particularly taken with Trump's latest claim to ultimate pardon power.