Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack with Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton at a campaign appearance in Iowa today. (Jerry Hagstrom/The Hagstrom Report)

ANKENY, Iowa — Flanked by Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said here today she would “strengthen the Renewable Fuel Standard” and take other actions to promote economic growth in rural America, as well as fight methamphetamine addiction.

Clinton was introduced at the FFA Enrichment Center on a community college campus here by Vilsack, who endorsed her today in a column in The [Cedar Rapids] Gazette. She devoted a substantial portion of her speech to addressing social problems in rural America. (See accompanying stories.)

In starting her list of proposals for rural America, Clinton said, “We need to strengthen the Renewable Fuel Standard so that it drives the development of advanced biofuels and expands the overall contribution that renewable fuels make to our national fuel supply.”

“And we should also double our investment in loan guarantee programs that help rural communities build the processing plants and convert agriculture and landfill waste into useful products. Projects like that are already supporting millions of good jobs, and with the right incentives, they can create even more.”

In a “Plan for a Vibrant Rural America” distributed to attendees, Clinton said she wants to “strengthen the Renewable Fuel Standard so that it drives the development of advanced cellulosic and other advanced biofuels, protects consumers, improves access to E15, E85, and biodiesel blends, and provides investment certainty.”

Clinton did not mention corn-based ethanol by name in either her speech or the document, but the references to making the E15 and E85 higher level blends more available would bolster that product.

Corn-based ethanol makes up most of the renewable fuel supply in the country, but it is controversial among environmentalists and even within agriculture. Crop farmers support the government mandate while meat producers and food processors say it raises their costs.

The RFS — including and especially the provision requiring corn-based ethanol in the nation’s gasoline supply — is popular in Iowa, however, and is an issue that Iowans ask all the candidates about.

In her speech, Clinton also stressed solar and renewable energy production in general.

“I have set two big goals for our clean energy future: Half a billion solar panels within four years and enough energy production from renewables to power every home in America within 10 years,” she said.

“That will create jobs, it will grow our economy — it will especially grow the rural economy, and it will help us meet the challenge of climate change — which poses an acute threat to everyone, but particularly the livelihood of farm communities through droughts and other extreme weather.”

She also praised Iowa for producing a third of its total electricity from renewables, especially wind and biofuels.

“If Iowa can do it — I say this all over the country — so can the rest of the America,” she said.

Later in her speech, Clinton also praised rural America for increasing the country’s energy independence by developing renewable energy. She said Republican candidates want to provide more help to oil companies, which she described as one of the policies that “would take rural America backwards.”

Despite the lack of specificity on the RFS, America’s Renewable Fuels, a bipartisan group dedicated to raising the industry’s issues in the caucuses, praised Clinton comments.

“We thank Secretary Clinton for her commitment to Iowa’s farmers, consumers, and investors with her call of a strengthened RFS,” the group said.

“We enthusiastically echo that call, especially in light of President Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency’s disastrous Renewable Volume Obligation proposal. The EPA’s proposal is another example of conceding to the oil industry’s demands at the expense of clean, domestic renewable fuels and American jobs.”

• Transcript of Clinton’s remarks
• Hillary Clinton’s Plan for a Vibrant Rural America — Fact Sheet
• FFA Enrichment Center