Robert White from the Renewable Fuels Association had a conversation with Jesse Allen at the NAFB Convention in November.
Q: Well, a lot of the talk of convention has obviously been post-election here with Donald Trump going back to the White House. What does this mean for biofuels, ethanol policy? I guess just to start, kind of a thousand-foot view. What’s RFA’s perspective on the Trump administration coming back here for round two?
RW: Yeah, we’ve experienced the first version, right? There was good and there was bad. We had record small refinery exemptions. Over 4.5 billion gallons were waived from the RFS. That turned into real gallons not being produced in our industry and less bushels being ground and for corn. So that was a painful experience to go through.
At the same time, the President was also supportive of year-round E15, made his EPA do that and unfortunately it was struck down in the courts on a later date, but obviously not the President’s fault. So, we have a mixed bag on a historical look, but going forward, it’s a different time, it’s a different industry, it’s a different time in agriculture.
Now we’re looking at appointees, whether it’s EPA, USDA, DOE, they’re all involved in our industry. And then you even turn your focus and look around to Congress and you got a lot of new faces both in the House and Senate. You’re going to have a lot of new young staff. All of them have to be reminded of the value of agriculture and specifically for us in ethanol.
Q: Well, I think about you mentioned EPA. Lee Zeldin has been nominated. His past record on ethanol, biofuels, I wouldn’t say it was necessarily all that friendly. What’s RFA’s thoughts on Lee Zeldin’s appointment to EPA?
RW: Well, historically I would tend to agree with you. A lot of those pieces of legislation were more marker bills than anything.
So it may have been a horse trade to put your name on this and I’ll put my name on that. But there’s nothing recent. You know, 2016, 2017, we’re again a much different industry than we were back then. And so his opinion may change. He’s from New York.
We produce ethanol there. We have a board member from New York. And so we’re trying to connect those dots ahead of any appointment. But just like almost every EPA administrator in recent history, with maybe the exception of administrator Regan, we’ve had challenges and we have to work through that. We have to educate, and we have to again, all the way up to the 1600 Pennsylvania, we have to remind the power of agriculture how many people this affects.
And the good thing about all our product is yes, it’s also environmentally friendly, but it’s less expensive. You hear the President elect’s conversations about American products and tariffs on imports. Well, guess what, we’re an entity, we’re a commodity that’s already here. We do export a lot. So there could be challenges, of course, but by and large it’s something we can use more of here and checks a lot of the boxes.
Q: Well, and looking ahead as well, we still have to get a Farm Bill. We have looking at RVOs, that’s going to be another issue. E15 nationwide, there’s a lot of things on the plate here too that have impacts on agriculture and on ethanol that we got to watch closely as well moving forward.
RW: Yeah, E15 is priority number one. We’re still trying to convince retailers to add a product that they can’t sell 3.5 months of the year.
It’s just archaic and we have to fix that. We’re 12, almost 13, years into this fight and we still don’t have a fix. But you know the good news about ethanol, it’s bipartisan, it has support across the aisle. It just needs a pathway to get there. So we’re looking at everything from the lame duck to the next session on how do we get that across the finish line before next summer.
Q: What about RVOs? We obviously we got to figure that out, too. And that’s looks like it’s going to fall on the Trump administration here as we move forward.
RW: Yeah, it definitely will. So, you know, crystal ball is a little fuzzy at this point. Will we get one year? Will we get another three years? Will they increase the RVOs for things like bio-based diesel so that we don’t have the run over into the D6 Ren pool. So there’s definitely a a lot of things to consider there. And again, why EPA is so important to the RFA and to the ethanol industry.
The thing that’s different that I like to point out to people, under the last Trump administration, the RFS was still under essentially congressional control. It was under statutory, now it’s under EPA’s control. So they have a lot more ability and flexibility to alter that. So first and foremost, get those RVOs up, maintain our 15 billion gallons and multiyear certainty would be wonderful.
I encourage everyone, now that the election’s over, to reach out to either their steadfast champions or their newly elected officials. Make sure they understand the importance everything we just talked about. Because they’re the constituents. We’re the National Trade Association.
