Corn farmers were kicked out of the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday after protesting against Congress for their failure to include E15 legislation in the government spending bills at the last minute.
Congress Omits E15 Deal From Government Spending Bills
After reaching a compromise deal on E15 between the petroleum industry and biofuels groups, the coalition has been working for the last few months to build support in Congress to include an amendment on year-round E15 in the appropriations bills to continue funding the government after Jan. 30.
Geoff Cooper, president and CEO of the Renewable Fuels Association says they were surprised when the Senate version did not contain that language and instead kicked it over to the House. “Congressman Zach Nun from Iowa offered an amendment that would include the E15 language. We were very much in play the last few days trying to get that language into this package, but as of today, it appears that what is going to happen is Congress is going to kick the can again on getting this legislation done.”
E15 sales are currently limited in the summer months due to air quality regulations under the Clean Air Act.
Corn Growers Disgusted
In a statement National Corn Growers Association president Jed Bower said corn grower were disgusted, disappointed and disillusioned after spending years of calling on Congress to pass E15. “I met with Speaker Johnson back in November. He said he was frustrated because DOGE had pulled this out last year. He said he would get something done and here we are again. The same thing we get all the time. Let’s step on and push on the farmers because there’s not very many of them and we can get away with it.”
Rural Domestic Energy Council Formed
Instead, to make all parties happy the White House has created a new Rural Domestic Energy Council.
Cooper says the group consists of oil refiners, E15 supporters and lawmakers, who are tasked to develop potential legislative proposals on E15, for future adoption. “It appears there is an agreement in the works that would create a new council that would be comprised of members of Congress who are going to further study and further debate E15 and the RFS and small refinery exemption issues over the next month or so with the idea that they would have a comprehensive legislative proposal to bring back for consideration near the end of February.”
Bower says this essentially means having to start over on their E15 efforts. The push back is coming from the Freedom Caucus. “Well, the Freedom Caucus is all worried about government spending, government overreach, and literally the government scored our bill to save the government $6 billion. Let alone what it does for agriculture in the horrible time we’re having and it’s going to drop fuel prices 25 cents a gallon. What the hell does the Freedom Caucus really believe in?”
Bower calls this a cowardly move by the administration and says it comes after a compromise deal was already struck between the ethanol and petroleum industries. “When we met at the White House and fought through this with the American Petroleum Institute, we had a lot of oil and gas support for this.” He called it a cowardly move by the administration.”
What’s the Legislative Pathway for E15 Now?
Without attaching E15 to the spending bill, it must pass as stand-alone legislation and that will be a heavy lift in Cooper’s estimation. “We know this is an election year. We know there are going to be very few opportunities between now and the election to move legislative vehicles.”
So Cooper says the call to action for farmers is to pressure Congress. “We have a broad coalition of support behind a carefully crafted deal. Congress should not let that slip away and and they should do everything they can to wedge that into this appropriations process here at the end of January.”
Because he says immediately opening new markets is the fastest way out of the crisis facing the nation’s farmers and they can’t afford to wait.
