Trump calls meeting with Cabinet officials on biofuels policy: reports

President Trump is organizing White House meetings with Cabinet officials about a federal biofuel mandate that a major refiner blamed for its bankruptcy, Bloomberg and Reuters report.

The first meeting on potential changes to the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) will be Friday with EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt and Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, Bloomberg said.

Trump will then meet Tuesday with those Cabinet officials and a handful of senators from both oil- and corn-heavy states who care about the policy, both news outlets report.

The meetings come weeks after Philadelphia Energy Solutions (PES), the largest fuel refiner on the East Coast, declared bankruptcy, blaming compliance costs associated with the RFS...

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who is expected to be at the Tuesday meeting, proposed capping the price for which the ethanol credits can be sold. That idea is opposed by ethanol companies, who say it would reduce incentives to produce the renewable fuel.

http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/375647-agriculture-groups-send-letter-to-trump-supporting-renewable-fuel
“Ag groups urge Trump to keep Federal biofuel mandate”

Senator Ted Cruz, farm state senators, EPA, USDA, heads to meet at White House Tuesday.

""The two officials will propose: capping the price of biofuel credits (called Renewable Identification Numbers); a year-round waiver for the sale of 15 percent ethanol gasoline; the creation of credits for exported ethanol; and a transparency measure intended to cut Wall Street investors out of trading in the program. All of the proposals would be executed administratively, rather than legislatively, Pro Energy’s Eric Wolff has learned.
The pitch precedes a meeting Trump has on Tuesday with Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), Ted Cruz (R-Texas), and Pat Toomey (R-Penn.). Chief of staff John Kelly and National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn are also expected to attend.
In essence, the Cruz proposal: Cruz has been proposing the waiver-for-RIN-cap package for months now and getting nowhere with corn-state lawmakers. The addition of allowing credits for exports, which Pruitt floated and abandoned last year after an uproar from Gang Grain, seems unlikely to add to its appeal, although ethanol producers have expressed openness to the transparency measure.

A refinery source told Eric that the legal authority for some of these measures would be "highly doubtful, but by the time the rule is final and then litigated, authors will be long gone from the scene. Think at least 2-2.5 years. God only knows what gyrations the market will endure in the interim.""

Supporting the crony-capitalist food-burning mandate is the one thing Trump has done that I consider spectacularly wrong. I understand why he did it. The corn states were saying "Let us screw the public or Hilary gets elected." The question is whether he can use his "Art of the Deal" skills to back out of this without losing the next election.

As part of the deal, Ted Cruz lifted his hold and Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey has been confirmed as US Undersecretary of Agriculture.

http://wcfcourier.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/bill-northey-approved-for-usda-post/article_91ee9cc1-4899-5ccf-ab73-ca6f68853602.html

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