Chad Smith, NAFB News Service

Just a year ago, President Donald Trump paid a visit to an ethanol plant in Council Bluffs, Iowa. The Hagstrom Report says the ethanol industry is now appealing to him directly to look into the Environmental Protection Agency’s implementation of the Renewable Fuels Standard. Ethanol industry leaders held a telephone news conference last week and sent a letter directly to the president. The industry’s impatience with Trump could hurt him in Iowa and other key ethanol-producing states, which could make this year’s election even more interesting. In the past several months, industry groups have gone after the EPA when it came to mismanaging the RFS. On the call last week, Renewable Fuels Association President and CEO Geoff Cooper said, “Ultimately, the buck stops in the Oval Office. We are now appealing to the president to intervene here.” Cooper says the first EPA administrator under Trump, Scott Pruitt, “derailed things.” However, his successor, Andrew Wheeler, hasn’t gotten things going again in the right direction. In the letter, Cooper wrote that “Even after the federal court overturned some refinery waivers in January, your EPA continues to receive dozens of exemption requests from oil companies. EPA is now considering retroactive waivers for years that pre-date your administration. This has to stop.”