Renewable Fuels Association

While the EPA's announcement was welcomed by organizations such as the Iowa Farm Bureau, several contend that the refinery exemptions will still have negative effects on the biofuels industry.

Renewable Fuels Association President and CEO Geoff Cooper said in a statement Tuesday that the Trump administration understands this is no time to undermine biofuels, at a time when refiners are recording record profits and drivers face record prices at the pump.

"While we believe most of the exemptions were unjustified, EPA's reallocation plan, if finalized as proposed, will help offset the demand loss for ethanol producers and farmers," Cooper said.

"We look forward to this proposal being swiftly finalized so that renewable fuel producers, refiners, and our partners in agriculture have the certainty that they need heading into 2027." Zeldin also argued that the EPA's decisions have a direct impact on the supply and demand of commodities, citing the price of a bushel of corn has gone up since the agency originally announced its plan to propose 100% reallocation in August, and that trend has continued until the present day.

Lean hogs are lower.

The bean oil market caught a bid just ahead of the start of the show, which means the conversation with Troy Bredenkamp from the Renewable Fuels Association will be really important this morning.

We may be still awaiting an announcement from EPA's Lee Zeldin, or that announcement is working its way into the bean market already.

We'll also talk financing with Nate Franzén from First Dakota National Bank.

Lazy yellow moon coming up tonight.

Welcome back to Agritalk.

I almost feel like I need to tap dance for a little bit and see if we can get an announcement from EPA before we get too deep into this conversation with Troy Bredenkamp, the senior VP of government and public affairs for the Renewable Fuels Association.

But we've got lots of things that we can talk about.

Ethanol production increased four point six percent for the week ending October second versus the previous week.

That's three point seven percent above the five-week average, the Renewable Fuels Association says, citing Energy Information Administration data.

Here's today's final word.

"I think for so long the industry has been judged based on fluid milk and the trajectory here.

Well, it could be an opportunity for corn farmers.

Renewable Fuels Association President and CEO Jeff Cooper stopped by our studio, and we went in-depth on the future of ethanol for maritime shipping.

Well, Jeff, thanks for being here today.

We appreciate it.

Elsewhere, the White House this past week was considering regulatory relief that would allow broader sales of red-dyed off-road diesel as part of an effort to bring down soaring diesel prices.

Renewable Fuels Association President and CEO Jeff Cooper is hesitant to support a diesel export ban because of the potential long-term effects on fuel supplies.

We have looked at a lot of the analysis that's been generated in the last week or few weeks, um, suggesting that, uh, banning diesel exports might help in the short term, uh, with, with fuel prices, uh, but longer term, uh, could have the opposite effect and, and could actually result in higher prices, especially on the diesel side, right? I mean, refiners don't just make diesel.

Uh, they take a, a barrel of crude oil and it becomes, uh, diesel fuel, gasoline, jet fuel, and a number of other products.

We're not exporting a drop of ethanol to China, uh, and our distillers grains exports are, are way down to that market as well.

So our message to the Trump administration ahead of this meeting was, you know, uh, please keep ethanol in the conversation

Once again, that's Geoff Cooper, president and CEO of the Renewable Fuels Association.

This week's final segment of the Agribiz Show is coming up next on the Mighty 790 and 104.7 KFGO.