[ad_1]
At the same time, the largest US ethanol manufacturer, POET, said it was forced to close a plant in Indiana because of the "mismanagement" of the EPA's mandate by the company. EPA, said Tuesday the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, "farmers have the impression that the government is not". "keep your word" on biofuels.
However, President Chuck Grassley warned that Congress may not have enough support to cancel the EPA, which exempted 31 refineries from complying with its mandate.
"The development of legislation could bury the RFS," said Grassley, referring to the renewable fuel standard (RFS), which guarantees biofuels a share of the US gasoline market.
Grassley is from Iowa, the leading corn and ethanol producing state. Corn ethanol was a darling of the Farm Belt for years, but is now being criticized by environmentalists and conservatives of the free market.
Farmer groups and ethanol manufacturers claim that the EPA undermines the RFS when it issues waivers for "waiver" that exempts small-volume refineries from "wastewater". obligation to mix ethanol with their gasoline or to buy credits in case of failure.
The professional group Renewable Fuels Association said last week that 13 ethanol plants had been closed – three of them permanently – "largely because of the loss of demand resulting from the abusive exploitation by the administration of the exemptions granted. to small refiners ".
"Not only is the government not keeping its word, but in a sense, it is messing up the farmer while grain prices are already low," Grassley said at a news conference call. The seventh-term Republican senator was nearing the end of his annual circuit of public assemblies in all the counties of the state. The Sino-US trade war is a concern for the agricultural economy, he said, based on comments made at meetings. "Of course, ethanol adds to that."
POET announced that it would cease producing at its 92 million gallon ethanol plant annually located in Cloverdale, in central Indiana, "after which the plant will cease to process more than 30 million gallons of corn annually and will affect hundreds of local jobs. "
"Unfortunately, the oil industry is manipulating the EPA and is now using the RFS to destroy the demand for biofuels, reduce the price of commodities and eradicate rural economies," said POET CEO Jeff Broin. Headquartered in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, POET has reduced production by half of its 28 refineries in seven states and will reduce maize processing by 100 million bushels.
Two new petitions were filed by refiners following EPA approval on August 9 of 31 exemptions for small refineries. The waivers have a retroactive impact on 1.43 billion gallons of biofuel bonds. The Trump administration has granted four or five times more waivers annually than the Obama administration. The oil industry claims that biofuel credits have been excessively expensive in recent years and that the RFS clearly allows for derogations in difficult times.
President Trump ordered cabinet members to appease the anger caused by the closures, Reuters reported. "The measures that Trump could take to appease disgruntled farmers by granting the exemptions were not yet known." Nevertheless, the price of ethanol credits rose by one penny, to 13.5 percent. ยข each, as a result of wireline service.
Nearly 40% of the annual corn harvest in the United States is used in the manufacture of ethanol and co-products such as distillers grains used for livestock feed. POET says it buys 5% of the US crop when its facilities are running at full capacity, or 1.71 billion gallons a year.
ADM is the world's second largest ethanol producer with operating capacity behind POET.
Dozens of US ethanol plants produced nearly 16.1 billion gallons last year and exported 1.7 billion gallons. The RFS for corn ethanol was 15 billion gallons in 2018.
[ad_2]
Source link