USDA offers $100 million to boost higher blends of biofuels
Grants totaling $100 million will be available to install or retrofit fuel pumps and storage tanks to handle higher blends of corn ethanol and biodiesel than now commonly offered, said the USDA, with details to be available by mid-spring. "USDA will continue to do its part to encourage the use of home-grown energy," said Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue.
Global ethanol use to grow dramatically, says USGC analyst
China, Brazil and the United States will help drive a dramatic global increase in ethanol consumption in the next 10 years, said a U.S. Grains Council analyst on Monday. However, the Sino-U.S. trade war will blunt the opportunity for ethanol from the United States, the world’s largest …
Trump’s vague plan to boost ethanol has the oil industry threatening to sue
The Trump administration responded to months of Farm Belt complaints that it was undermining homegrown biofuels by vowing to increase the ethanol mandate, beginning next year, above the 15-billion-gallon-a-year target that is set by law. Officials did not specify a new figure for corn ethanol usage nor did its package include the oil industry's goal of a cap on the price of credits that refiners must buy if they do not mix enough ethanol into gasoline.
Farm Belt howls as EPA proposes no-growth biofuel mandate for 2020
The Trump administration proposed a Renewable Fuel Standard of 20.04 billion gallons for 2020, meaning no change in corn ethanol's share of the gasoline market for cars and light trucks, while the share of that market going to cleaner-burning cellulosic ethanol, made from grass and woody plants, will increase by 120 million gallons. Farm groups and biofuel makers, who opened the summer with a celebration that higher-blend E15 was approved for year-round sale, said the EPA bowed to Big Oil.
In No. 1 corn and ethanol state, Trump says he’s ‘very close’ to year-round E15
President Trump, who campaigned for the White House as a friend of corn ethanol, said on Thursday that the administration is “very close” to approving year-round sales of a 15 percent blend of ethanol into gasoline. “We’re taking care of your ethanol,” said Trump during a trip to Iowa, the top corn-growing and ethanol-producing state.
Ethanol, ag groups raise alarm ahead of White House meeting on biofuels
Administration officials will hold their first White House meeting in a month on the Renewable Fuel Standard, as ethanol makers and corn growers fear an attack on the ethanol mandate. The Iowa Renewable Fuels Association said if the White House weakens the RFS, it "will be viewed as nothing less than a declaration of war on rural America and a complete abdication of [President Trump's] repeated promises to protect the RFS."
Midwest senators warn Trump against ethanol poison pill
Five corn-state senators want to meet President Trump face to face to warn him against the oil industry's proposal of a cap on the price of RINs, the credits that refiners must buy if they don't blend enough ethanol into gasoline. Oil-state senators, led by Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, say the cap is needed to preserve jobs at oil refineries; midwesterners say it would destroy the market for corn ethanol.
Alternatives to RIN price cap stirring in Washington
Oil-state Sen. Ted Cruz captured President Trump's attention two weeks ago with his dramatic proposal to ease the cost of the ethanol mandate on refiners: A price cap on RINs, the credits that refiners buy if they don't blend enough biofuel into gasoline. Farm groups and ethanol makers say Cruz's idea would be a disaster for them, and now some alternative ideas are getting a hearing.
After two meetings, a pause in the White House focus on biofuels
The White House is taking a break from biofuels policy, at least temporarily, after two meetings with President Trump at the table failed to find consensus between the oil and ethanol industries. The only agreement, according to Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, who was part of both meetings, "was to look at economic studies" about the impact of the Renewable Fuel Standard and possible changes.
Cellulosic ethanol looks more like a demonstration project than an industry
Corn ethanol represents the first generation of biofuels. Cellulosic ethanol, made from grass, woody plants, and crop debris, was supposed to be the second generation.
An RFS compromise? No, says Grassley. Maybe, says Perdue.
Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley said that he doubts there is room for a compromise with oil-state senators over the Renewable Fuel Standard, and that there had been no discussion among senators about one.
Trump to meet oil industry and lawmakers on biofuels mandate
President Trump will meet oil industry leaders and their congressional allies for a discussion of the biofuels mandate, reported Reuters, based on two sources. The meeting "could set the stage for negotiations to overhaul the U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard," said the wire service; the industry has pressed for years to eliminate the mandate or revise its requirement to blend biofuels into gasoline and diesel fuel.
Biofuels industry laments it didn’t get more in new RFS targets
Farm-state officials played their Trump card six weeks ago, calling in White House support to quash potential cuts in the Renewable Fuel Standard, which sets U.S. targets for biofuel consumption.
China jolts world corn supplies with huge appetite
The International Grains Council sharply boosted its estimate of corn consumption in China, pointing to government measures expected to drive up industrial use of the grain 14 percent during 2017/18. The shift in Chinese consumption will affect grain stockpiles worldwide, said the IGC in its monthly Grain Market Report, with the first reduction in five years in the grain "carryover" at the end of the marketing year.
Northey nomination for USDA may move in December
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz won’t let go of his “hold” on USDA nominee Bill Northey, said Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, so he and fellow Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst have appealed to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to arrange a vote. “We want to do it as soon after Nov. 30 as we can,” Grassley told ag reporters.
Appeals court overturns EPA’s 2016 biofuel mandate
The EPA erred when it set the target for biofuels use in 2016 below the levels specified by Congress, said the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in a decision that vacated the regulation and ordered EPA to try again. The three-judge panel said EPA improperly interpreted the "inadequate supply provision" that allows it to waive the statutory targets for renewable fuel use.
Ethanol group gets the cold shoulder
The largest of the ethanol trade groups, the Renewable Fuels Association, is out in the cold for supporting a change in the program that gives biofuels a share of the U.S. gasoline market. Fuels America, an agribusiness coalition "committed to protecting America's Renewable Fuels Standard," severed ties with RFA, while the second-largest ethanol group, Growth Energy, said the RFA was doing the dirty work of the oil industry.
Trump tells ethanol conference ‘renewable fuels are essential’
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.