Political and market forces are converging around the U.S. biofuel industry as farmers and refiners press Washington on policy decisions that both sides say will be critical to future growth.
The White House met recently with agriculture and oil industry representatives over legislation to allow year-round, nationwide access to higher corn ethanol blends, known as E15. Administration officials met with each group separately, a possible sign of the growing tensions between the two sides over E15 and other outstanding issues.
The ethanol discussions, details of which haven’t been made public, come as Congress has only a handful of days left to pass the bipartisan legislation this year. After almost getting a bill over the finish line in late 2024, it remains the industry’s top goal amid an expected record U.S. corn crop and the ongoing threat of declining demand for liquid motor fuel.
While some farm-state lawmakers say the E15 bill from Sen. Deb Fischer, R-Neb., could still pass this year, the broader hope now is early 2026.
Emily Skor (Agri-Pulse photo)“The shutdown slowed things down,” Emily Skor, chief executive officer of ethanol trade group Growth Energy, told Agri-Pulse. Skor sees January as the next best chance at attaching E15 language to a larger bill, in this case a funding measure to avert another government shutdown.
There had been hopes a couple months ago that E15 could be added to U.S. defense authorization legislation that must clear Congress by the end of December. As the bill is close to full passage, that’s seen as less likely.
Meanwhile, a potential obstacle to E15, Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, indicated last week he’s open to negotiations. His support could be crucial given his role as top Democrat on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.
“I told Republicans, it is something I’m certainly willing to consider, but waiting for their first offer,” Whitehouse, a proponent of electric vehicles and hydrogen energy, said in a news conference last week on battling climate change.
But first E15 bill backers need to deal with the seismic break in their coalition in October, when the American Petroleum Institute pulled its support for the Fischer legislation that the powerful oil and gas lobby previously supported.
At the time, API said while it still stands behind the idea of E15 becoming permanently available at gasoline pumps, it can't back the bipartisan legislation in its current form. In a letter to congressional leaders, API listed what it sees as a raft of policy setbacks that have led to "new costs on refiners and disrupted the fuels marketplace."
Skor is among those that are optimistic the oil group can be brought back into the fold.
"They want to find a way to get it done," said Geoff Cooper, CEO of ethanol lobbying group Renewable Fuels Association. "That I think has kept the door open to the possibility of them supporting some legislative package that includes year-round E15."
API declined to comment.
Rep. Angie Craig, D-Minn. (Official photo)Democratic Rep. Angie Craig of Minnesota said last week she's working with her co-chairs on the Biofuels Caucus on what paths could still be available for E15.
"If the Trump administration wants to be able to support farmers who have been desperately impacted by the trade war, then they will look for new domestic markets for renewable fuels," she said. "If the Trump administration is going to cower to big oil, then they won’t."
Other policy issues still need attention
Complicating matters even more, the API-E15 talks coincide with pressure on the Trump administration to deal with other major policy issues for renewable fuels. The Environmental Protection Agency still needs to issue a final decision on reallocating billions of gallons of previously waived volumes of renewable fuel under the Renewable Fuel Standard, the 20-year-old federal law establishing national biofuel-blending rules.
EPA also is being urged to complete U.S. biofuel-blending quotas for 2026-27 as soon as possible. Then there's also the 45Z clean fuel tax credit that is awaiting guidance from U.S. Treasury, an incentive that's been the focus of massive regulatory uncertainty and blamed for reducing production of domestic biomass-based diesel.
There's concern on the biofuels side that API's E15 stance could lead to unwanted changes in some or all of the pending policy decisions, including an EPA retreat from its proposal to discourage foreign biofuel feedstocks. EPA's higher-than-expected proposed renewable volume obligations for biomass-based diesel blending quotas were a major victory for the growers and processors of soybeans and other crops used to make the fuel.
"We've been very clear with the ethanol industry that any E15 deal should be taken care of on a separate track than the current RVO and EPA's proposal to reallocate," said Kurt Kovarik, vice president of federal affairs for Clean Fuels Alliance America, which represents the biomass-based diesel industry.
"However, that plays out, it should not delay, should not amend and it should not distract from the very important RVO that needs to be finalized.”
Associate Editor Lydia Johnson contributed to this story.
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