Rastetter must resign

Rastetter Must Resign From Board of Regents

Emails indicate Rastetter may have used his appointed public position to pursue a personal agenda

Des Moines, Iowa -  Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement (Iowa CCI) members demand Bruce Rastetter resign from his position on the Iowa Board of Regents immediately.  The public outcry comes after the  Associated Press reported on emails that showed Rastetter may have abused his #2 position on the board by pushing for a partnership between Iowa State University and his agribusiness corporation, AgriSol Energy.  The project involved an attempted land-grab in Tanzania that would have displaced thousands of refugee farmers.

Iowa CCI members say they will consider a formal conflict of interest ethics complaint if Rastetter does not resign.

“This is the perfect example of what happens when Governor Branstad appoints a fox to run the henhouse,” said Ross Grooters, a CCI member from Pleasant Hill.  “Iowans shouldn’t have to wonder about who he was representing during these discussions – the Board of Regents or AgriSol.”

“Even the appearance of a conflict of interest is grounds for a resignation,” Grooters said.  “This looks pretty bad.  Rastetter needs to go because it looks like he used his position on the Board of Regents to pursue his own personal financial gain instead of pursuing the public interest and the common good as he was charged to do.”

The emails obtained by the Associated Press show that Rastetter actively participated in discussions about how Iowa State University could partner with AgriSol for a land-grab project in Tanzania.  The emails included discussions about an ISU proposal asking AgriSol for a 5-year funding commitment to the university in exchange for university assistance, at roughly the same time AgriSol approached ISU about the possibilities of securing a joint grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture that both entities could financially benefit from.

Last July, Iowa State came under intense public scrutiny for its involvement in the AgriSol land-grab project in Tanzania.  But ISU officials continued to discuss a joint ISU/AgriSol partnership with Rastetter for weeks afterwards despite their acknowledgement that the university’s reputation had suffered because of the controversy.

Bruce Rastetter was Governor Terry Branstad´s top individual donor during the governor’s re-election campaign, with a 2010 year to date gift totaling $162,712, according to the National Institute for Money in State Politics. Rastetter also provided seed money for the shadowy American Future Fund that poured millions of secret dollars into smear campaigns against progressive Democrats across the country in 2010.  Rastetter is a venture capitalist who founded the now bankrupt Heartland Pork and later moved from factory farms into ethanol.##