Durbin, Bustos rip Trump on ethanol
Senator says new EPA rule is ‘watered down,’ congresswoman calls it ‘complete failure’ for farmers
A Midwestern ethanol refinery: waivers on biofuel production granted to larger refineries have undercut demand for farm crops. (Shutterstock)
By Ted Cox
Two prominent members of the Illinois congressional delegation are attacking the Trump administration over what they call “watered-down” new rules on ethanol production that constitute a “complete failure” for farmers.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued new regulations last week that U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin’s office called “the finalized supplemental rule establishing the Renewable Fuel Standard’s 2020 Renewable Volume Obligations and 2021 Biomass-Based Diesel Volumes.” But Durbin and U.S. Rep. Cheri Bustos of Moline both issued statements in response saying that the Trump administration was selling out farmers by issuing waivers on biofuel production to major refineries, abusing a program meant to benefit small refineries just starting out.
The refinery waivers have been a sticking point for Illinois farmers going back to last summer and beyond. Farmers charge that the refinery waivers have cut ethanol production by 2.6 billion gallons under the Trump administration, and they blame that for undercutting demand for crops like corn and soybeans at a time when prices were already falling thanks to Trump’s ongoing trade war with China.
Bustos criticized the EPA in August for granting 31 new refinery waivers. Durbin added last week that brought the total number of ethanol waivers granted under the Trump administration to 85. U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth charged in September on a visit to an ethanol refinery in Hennepin that some of those waivers were going to major gas companies like Exxon and Chevron.
“By issuing 85 waivers that allow oil refineries to stop blending biofuels, President Trump has single-handedly delivered one crippling blow after another to everyone who invested decades in building the biofuels industry,” Durbin said in a statement. “This watered-down RFS deal makes me wonder if we will ever see a biofuels market under this president like we once had. There are few options remaining to fix the damage. President Trump claims his love for ethanol and biodiesel is strong. I say believe it when you see it.”
At issue are new rules applying to the Renewable Fuel Standard. Farmers applauded an apparent compromise on the EPA regulation in October, only to feel betrayed when the final new rules were released in November without a commitment to trim the high number of refinery waivers being granted.
“The finalization of this EPA rule demonstrates this administration’s complete failure to meet the needs our family farmers and biofuel producers,” Bustos said in a statement released last week. “Throughout the rule-making process, the administration said they would seek to fully restore lost gallons, provide more long-term certainty in the waiver process, and offer a clear path to implementation. Instead, the administration has chosen to side with big oil and turn their backs on rural America.”
Duckworth and Durbin co-sponsored a bill earlier this year calling for reforms in the waiver program and transparency in the process to determine which refineries are granted waivers.
Robin Hanna, project manager for the Rural Economic Technical Assistance Center for the Illinois Institute for Rural Affairs at Western Illinois University, delivered a report on the state’s ethanol industry at the annual Illinois Farm Bureau meeting this month in Chicago. It found that ethanol generated $10 billion in economic output, as Illinois has 13 plants that produce about 1.9 billion gallons of the corn-based fuel annually.
“These are big numbers,” Hanna told FarmWeekNow.com. “And the downstream effects are huge.”
According to the story on the online news agency, “the ethanol industry has a direct, indirect, or induced effect on 32,216 positions statewide and generates about $1.5 billion in labor income along with $575 million in public revenues.”