As a candidate, Donald Trump supported corn ethanol and, one month after taking office, he reiterated his view, telling the National Ethanol Conference, “renewable fuels are essential to America’s energy strategy.” The industry is under perennial attack by the oil industry and by some environmental groups, that want to reduce or eliminate the federal mandate to use biofuels.
“Rest assured that your president and this administration value the importance of renewable fuels to America’s economy and to our energy independence,” wrote Trump in a one-page letter. “As I emphasized throughout my campaign, renewable fuels are essential to America’s energy strategy.” The president said he would work with the ethanol industry “and many others” to identify and remove “over-zealous, job-killing regulation” that deliver insufficient benefits to public health or the environment.
Bob Dinneen, head of the Renewable Fuels Association, thanked Trump “for re-affirming his support for the domestic biofuels industry and the RFS,” the Renewable Fuels Standard. Some 35 percent of the U.S. corn crop is used to make ethanol. The industry distilled a record 15.3 billion gallons of the renewable fuel last year. So far this year, production is running at an annualized rate of 16.1 billion gallons, which would be the fifth year in a row of rising production.