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Trump, GOP Senators Meet to Work on Ethanol Standards
USAgNet - 12/11/2017

President Donald Trump urged Republicans to settle their differences over the U.S. biofuel mandate at a White House meeting Wednesday with Ted Cruz and other senators critical of the requirement for ethanol use, according to lawmakers who attended.

"There wasn't a resolution. It was we need to get to resolution," said Senator James Lankford, an Oklahoma Republican who attended the meeting.

According to Bloomberg News, some senators are exploring the possibility of putting a cap on the price of renewable identification numbers, or RINs, the tradeable credits used to show compliance with annual biofuel quotas, said a lobbyist who was briefed on the meeting by participants. That could be paired with other changes to help ethanol and biodiesel producers, such as moves to build more renewable fuel blending infrastructure, the lobbyist said.

Cruz insisted on the meeting to discuss possible changes to the biofuel mandate before he will stop blocking a vote on Trump's nomination of Iowan Bill Northey to be an undersecretary of Agriculture.

A White House official said the president understands the importance of the Renewable Fuel Standard to rural America, and also understands the objections of the oil refining sector about "compliance burdens." Trump planned to listen to the concerns of the senators with the hope of finding common ground on both sides of this debate, the aide said.

Key Trump administration officials were to attend, including Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, and Trump economic adviser Gary Cohn, according to the official. Eleven senators, including Cruz, were also scheduled to attend.

"There was a collective desire to continue the conversation with all of the stakeholders here in the Senate and the House -- the corn state, oil-and-gas state senators -- and with the help of the Cabinet try to come up with some sort of compromise everybody could support," Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn of Texas said after the meeting. "There's some indication that the EPA administrator could have some authority with regard to the RIN prices, which are incredibly volatile."

Pruitt backed off proposals to ease mandates compelling the use of ethanol produced from corn and biodiesel from soybeans in transportation fuel after Republican Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa and other farm-state senators stalled at least one Trump EPA nominee, Bloomberg reports.

Grassley said Wednesday that he didn't plan to go to the White House meeting and that he's not concerned. Grassley cited promises Trump made while campaigning ahead of the Iowa presidential caucuses to protect the renewable fuel standard and assurances he said the president had given him and his fellow Iowa senator, Joni Ernst.


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