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Farmers urge Trump to address ‘economic crisis’ facing biofuels industry

Leaders in the renewable fuels industry say it’s urgent that President Trump fix the demand destruction and “economic crisis” created by RFS waivers.

Ron Heck of Perry, Iowa, secretary of the National Biodiesel Board, says there’s no time to wait.

“Many farmers are losing patience with the President,” Heck says. “He has to rein in his EPA right now or there will be political consequences to that, because of the economic damage we’re suffering.”

John Linder of Edison, Ohio, is the incoming first vice president of the National Corn Growers Association.

“President Trump vowed to support the ethanol industry and to fight for the American farmers like no other president has ever fought before,” Linder says. “We need him to keep that promise.”

Kelly Nieuwenhuis of Primghar, Iowa, president of the board of the recently idled Siouxland Energy ethanol plant in northwest Iowa, says the plant’s shutdown has caused a bit of a panic in his area.

“We’ve got farmers that usually brought corn to our plant during harvest, but we’re not taking corn right now,” Nieuwenhuis says. “We’ve got cattle feeders that are using our great feed product and they’re scrambling to find alternative feed sources right now to replace what we were shipping out of our plant.”

Ethanol supporters thought they had an agreement with Trump in mid-September to reallocate biofuels gallons lost to RFS waivers, but two weeks have passed, and the administration has yet to release finals details of the plan.

“We need this announcement in the next couple weeks,” Nieuwenhuis says.

At last count, 18 ethanol plants and nine biodiesel facilities have shut down in recent months.

The farmers made those comments during a conference call with reporters.