Editorial: Biden supports ethanol

If you listen to Iowa’s two senators, the socialists led by President Joe Biden are out to bring down corn ethanol. They were pretty quiet when Donald Trump occupied the White House and allowed 65 refineries to ignore the Renewable Fuels Standard ethanol blending requirements. Now, the EPA and Biden are the enemies of corn, as the GOP tells it. A different story comes from the president of the Renewable Fuels Association, native Iowan Geoff Cooper. He says Biden has done right by ethanol.

Writing in The Des Moines Register, Cooper noted that Biden and EPA Administrator Michael Regan had pledged to get ethanol back on track after its terrible treatment by the Trump Administration. How are they doing?

“After nearly a year of uncertainty and apprehension, we finally got some answers to those questions on Dec. 7 when EPA released an expansive package of proposed regulatory actions on the RFS. In short, while it isn’t perfect, we believe the new package seeks to make good on many of the Biden Administration’s RFS pledges. In our view, the proposals represent an important step forward for ethanol producers, farmers, and consumers in Iowa and across the nation.”

Cooper said his organization will work with the EPA to make certain it follows the 2007 law that created the RFS. So far, so good.

Complaining that the Biden Administration wants to squelch renewable fuels, with Tom Vilsack as agriculture secretary, strains credulity. Iowa’s members of Congress should work with the industry on providing a way forward into new biofuels and other products that can be made in Midwestern distilleries. You simply cannot make a serious argument that the Biden Administration is not supporting corn ethanol when the chief spokesman of the ethanol industry says just the opposite.