ethanol

The U.S. appeals court in Washington unanimously ordered the EPA to reconsider its Renewable Fuel Standard for 2018 because it failed to account for the potential impact of full-throttle corn production on endangered species and habitat. Even though the decision was directed at agency deliberations that took place in 2017, the Sierra Club, one of the plaintiffs in the case, said the EPA will have to take the ruling into account in writing the RFS for 2020.

Although most producers say Trump tariff payments will "completely or somewhat" relieve the impact of the Sino-U.S. trade war on their operations, farmer confidence is plummeting, according to a Purdue University poll released Tuesday. The Ag Economy Barometer, a gauge of the health of the agricultural economy, fell from a record high of 153 in July to the lowest reading — 124 — since May.<strong>(No paywall)</strong>

A day after President Trump scoffed at wheat exports to Japan — “They don’t even want our wheat,” he said — U.S. wheat growers called out the president for maligning an important trade relationship. It was one of the first times farmers have talked back to Trump since they helped elect him to office.

President Trump, who campaigned for election as a friend of corn ethanol, ought to stop the EPA from issuing "hardship" waivers that free refineries from complying with the so-called ethanol mandate, said ethanol and farm groups. The EPA approved 31 waivers for small-volume refineries on Friday without comment.

For years, larger and larger sales of corn ethanol were almost a given. For one thing, the Renewable Fuel Standard guaranteed biofuels a share of the gasoline market, and car-happy Americans used more gasoline every year. The joyride, however, may be ending, says a University of Illinois economist.

The EPA says it will approve sale of E15 — which contains 15 percent ethanol and 85 percent gasoline — before the start of the summer driving season, as promised by President Trump. To make sure the agency meets its goal, Senate Finance Committee chairman Chuck Grassley said on Tuesday the EPA should propose a stripped-down regulation devoted solely to the corn-based biofuel.

The partial government shutdown is putting a kink in the Trump tariff payments to farmers and it could prevent the EPA from approving the sale of E15 by the summer, as promised by President Trump. But farm groups have made few public complaints about the shutdown, now in its third week.

Ten days ahead of the midterm elections, President Trump will tout his agricultural record to a pared-down crowd of 7,000 teenagers at the FFA national convention in Indianapolis and campaign in southern Illinois for an imperiled Republican member of the House Agriculture Committee.

On his way to a campaign rally in Iowa, President Trump started the regulatory process on Tuesday for year-round sales of a 15 percent blend of corn ethanol in gasoline, sought in the Farm Belt as a tonic for trade war jitters. E15 sales are banned during the summer now, and the EPA will have to move expeditiously, given the federal rule-writing process, to implement Trump's order by next June 1, the usual cut-off date.