President Donald Trump's remarks in Iowa last week have the renewable fuels industry wondering if he was making a policy announcement or looking to please a pro-ethanol constituency.

Andrew Wheeler, the acting administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency charged with bringing some resolution to the ongoing renewable fuels policy debate, says the agency will not move piecemeal reform to the nation’s biofuel mandate.

President Donald Trump has apparently rejected a decision-making memo that was expected to deliver a long-awaited compromise on biofuels policy.

Waivers that refiners obtained from EPA eliminated demand for 1.12 billion gallons of ethanol last year, undermining requirements of the Renewable Fuel Standard, says Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue.

The biofuels and fossil fuels industries are aggressively jockeying for position in the run-up to 2022 when the U.S. EPA will have broad discretion to re-write the rules for the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), which mandates the use of ethanol, biodiesel and other biofuels in the nation's transportation fuel supply.