Articles Tagged with ''biofuels''

Congress faces a Friday deadline to pass a $1.3 trillion government-wide spending plan and companies that buy commodities from farmers hope it will include a fix to the Section 199A tax deduction that has rattled the industry.

The next meeting in the debate over the future of biofuels policy set for Monday morning has been called off, sources tell Agri-Pulse.

Last year, U.S. cellulosic ethanol production rose to 10 million gallons, a milestone but still a tiny fraction of the 2007 Energy Bill’s original 5.5 billion-gallon mandate for 2017. Still, with the lure of big premiums, the industry expects the expansion to continue.

The Trump administration this week finalizes hefty steel and aluminum tariffs that have farm groups bracing from retaliatory trade actions, and the president also is pushing forward to address complaints by refiners about the cost of complying with federal biofuel mandates.

President Trump’s search for a way to address refiners’ complaints about the Renewable Fuel Standard remained at an impasse following a meeting with biofuel and refining industry executives where the idea of a temporary cap on ethanol credits was quickly rejected by producers.

The Senate confirmed Bill Northey as USDA’s undersecretary for farm programs after Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, dropped a hold he had kept on the nomination for four months in a dispute over biofuel policy.

President Trump takes another stab this week at settling a biofuel policy dispute that has embroiled a key USDA nominee, and his administration will step up its defense of proposals to clamp down on federal nutrition assistance.