Statewide Iowa — A top USDA official who’s visiting Iowa says containment is key now that highly-contagious bird flu has been detected at six poultry sites in Iowa.
Jenny Lester Moffitt is the Under Secretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs at the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Moffitt spoke with reporters Friday, right after she and Iowa Congresswoman Cindy Axne of West Des Moines met with Iowa meat locker owners and others connected to the industry. Moffitt says the USDA is releasing more than 23-and-a-half million dollars, in a second round of grants for existing meat lockers. The grants can be used for things like equipment and marketing.
The agency has signed contracts with three firms that will help meat locker owners complete the grant applications. Moffitt says grants can be used to help lockers get certified to sell meat across state lines — and she heard from Iowans at the event who lobbied for more USDA meat inspectors. A few participants mentioned ethanol promotion, too. Axne says she spoke last week with the EPA Administrator about ensuring E-15 — gasoline with 15 percent ethanol — can be sold year round in every part of the country.
The vast majority of gasoline sold in the U.S. is E-10 — a 10 percent ethanol blend. E-15 sales are banned from June 1st through mid-September in many areas of the country, however. Axne says expanding E-15 sales year-round means consumers would have access to a less expensive fuel.
A federal appeals court tossed out a 2019 Trump Administration move to allow E15 sales year round. The ethanol industry has asked for a panel of judges to review the case.
