Michael Bloomberg has succumbed to political temptation, the clearest sign so far that the he will actually be running for president. The former mayor of New York just flew to Iowa, laid his face to the ground, and begged forgiveness of the ethanol barons he had previously criticized.

The actual humiliation was more subtle, of course. But while Bloomberg never left his feet, the groveling was unmistakable. He said “ethanol and biofuels are part of the energy mix.”

Those words aren’t out of the ordinary coming from a politician looking for support in Iowa. Ethanol is a $5 billion dollar industry and a sacred cow in the Corn Belt state. The majority of that money comes from a federally subsidy called the Renewable Fuels Standard and explains exactly why Bloomberg’s words are so significant.

Until recently, Bloomberg was one of the brave politicians. He didn’t bow down to the ethanol industry like everyone from Hillary Clinton to Mitt Romney (but not 2016 Iowa winner Ted Cruz) had before him. Bloomberg condemned corn subsidies for cronyism, global food shortages, and pollution. It wasn’t a fleeting thing either.

The New Yorker has held these ideas for more than a decade, like I noted yesterday:



Bloomberg said in a 2007 MSNBC interview that ethanol subsidies make for bad energy policy “unless what you’re trying to do is to help the people in Iowa and I don’t.” He followed up the next year by condemning the food shortages in the developing world caused by growing corn for fuel rather than food. Subsidized ethanol, Bloomberg told the World Science Summit, was “moral bankruptcy.”



Bloomberg wasn’t wrong, as I noted Tuesday:



Ethanol production regularly gobbles up as much as 40 percent of the nation's corn crop, making animal feed and human food more expensive as a result. It has boosted fuel costs by as much as $3.4 billion since 2014, according to the EPA's own analysis. And it may actually increase emissions, according to the Congressional Budget Office.



Bloomberg threw away the moral high ground. His ethanol conversion will help him avoid immediate criticism and provide some cover should he compete in Iowa’s first in the country caucuses. It will not, however, win him any respect, because his new biofuel beliefs are just like everyone else’s. And like every other politician, Bloomberg just proved that he will say anything to become president.