The Trump administration responded to months of Farm Belt complaints that it was undermining homegrown biofuels by vowing to increase the ethanol mandate, beginning next year, above the 15-billion-gallon-a-year target that is set by law.
According to a report at Successful Farming, officials did not specify a new figure for corn ethanol usage nor did its package include the oil industry’s goal of a cap on the price of credits that refiners must buy if they do not mix enough ethanol into gasoline.
The oil industry said it would fight a change in rules for the 2020 Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) and hinted at lawsuits to block the initiative announced by EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler and Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue on Friday.
