Henry Scott Wallace, the co-chair of the Wallace Global Fund - a private charitable foundation in Washington, D.C., said Tuesday during an interview with The Boone News-Republican that he sees agriculture and the economy as the core issues for Iowa in the upcoming election.
"For the rural agricultural economy, I think the part of that my grandfather would be most inspired and excited about is the confluence of agriculture and energy," Henry Scott Wallace said. "Iowa currently leads the nation in ethanol production and it now leads the country in cellulosic ethanol production. This company called Poet is opening six new cellulosic ethanol plants around Iowa ... it's ethanol that's made from the junk that's left over, it's not made from food."
"Cellulosic ethanol is incredibly more energy intensive than corn ethanol," Henry Scott Wallace said. "What I admire about Sen. Obama's position, he comes from a corn-ethanol-belt state but he has gone beyond the simple solution of just saying 'corn ethanol' and saying 'corn ethanol is a bridge to a cellulosic-ethanol future.'"
Henry Scott Wallace said, based upon estimates from Poet, cellulosic ethanol could help Iowa generate $2 billion in new capital investment and would create 2,600 jobs in the state as well as lowering prices for consumers.
"If we invest in this, the projection is that the cost of a gallon of cellulosic ethanol will be down at $1.07 by 2012," Henry Scott Wallace said.
The grandson of Henry A. Wallace also said that investment in wind energy could aid the Iowa economy and benefit farmers whose land houses wind turbines.
"One wind turbine has a footprint of a quarter acre of land. That one wind turbine can produce $300,000 of electricity in a year," Henry Scott Wallace said. "It only takes up about 1 percent of farm land, even at maximum utilization, so the farmer can still use the other 99 percent as before. And he will realize a royalty on each turbine of $8,000-$10,000."
Henry Scott Wallace said he views stark contrasts between the policy initiatives supported by Obama and his opponent Sen. John McCain.
"On the economy, as McCain has said himself - that he has a fundamental difference with Sen. Obama. The fundamental difference, as McCain says, 'I'm a deregulator. I'm for less government, less regulation.' And he's played this out throughout his congressional career," Henry Scott Wallace said. "We now see that government performs some useful functions. As it did in the New Deal."
Henry Scott Wallace said he sees many similarities between the current economic crisis in the United States and the economic conditions while his grandfather served as U.S. secretary of agriculture (1933-'40), vice president (1941-'45) and U.S. secretary of commerce (1945-'46).
"The parallels are huge and blinding ... My grandfather cared so much about the rural economy and the devastating effect of the Great Depression on rural America. I think, if he could be, he'd be here right now, too - trying to grab people by the collar and say 'Wake up people!'" Henry Scott Wallace said.
Henry A. Wallace served as the second vice president during Franklin Roosevelt's tenure in the Oval Office. He was born in Adair County. Henry A. Wallace died in 1965 and was buried at Glendale Cemetery in Des Moines.
Henry A. Wallace was the son of Henry C. Wallace, the secretary of agriculture under Presidents Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge. Henry C. Wallace lived and farmed near Orient/Greenfield and also lived in Ames and taught at Iowa State College.
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Following his visit to The Boone News-Republican, Tuesday, Henry Scott Wallace noted that his grandparents were close friends with former first lady Mamie Doud Eisenhower, of Boone, and former President Dwight Eisenhower.
"Mamie Eisenhower was the next-door neighbor of my grandparents when they first moved to Washington," Henry Scott Wallace said.
"They had apartments next to each other in the Wardman Park Towers on Connecticut Avenue in Washington, D.C. My nana, Mrs. Henry A. Wallace, and Mamie Eisenhower became best friends. They hung out together and had tea.
"My favorite story was one day Mamie came over for tea and my father - he was 13 years old at the time and he was an outdoors-kind of boy and liked to collect various animals. And Mrs. Eisenhower came screaming out of the bathroom - apparently my father had put his snake collection in the bathtub to hose them off. He hadn't told my mother or Mrs. Eisenhower. She (Mamie) liked to tell that story afterward about this unusual family that lived next door to them."
Like Henry Scott Wallace, Susan Eisenhower, the granddaughter of Dwight Eisenhower and Mamie Doud Eisenhower, has endorsed Obama's presidential bid. In August, Susan Eisenhower delivered a speech in support of Obama's candidacy at the Democratic National Convention in Denver.
