'Your EPA went too far': Farmers hit hard by Trump EPA's new ethanol rules are fuming

[riversedge]

Source: NBC News




Forty percent of total corn use in the U.S. is tied to growing ethanol production, according to the USDA.


Aug. 29, 2019, 4:07 PM CDT


SHENANDOAH, Iowa — President Donald Trump won 93 out of Iowa’s 99 counties in the 2016 presidential race — the most for a GOP nominee since 1980 — thanks in no small part to local farmers. But now, farmers here are questioning if they'll vote for him again.

"Farmer tensions are running pretty tight out here right now,” Duane Aistrope, a corn and soybean farmer in Randolph, Iowa — roughly two hours southwest of Des Moines — told NBC News. "We got him elected out here in the Midwest — the farmers did."

The Midwest agricultural industry is up in arms not only due to the president's trade war, but because the Environmental Protection Agency recently exempted 31 small oil refineries from rules that would require them to blend ethanol, which comes from corn, into their fuel supply. Those exemptions are now forcing farmers to grapple with lost revenue from wasted crops.


Aistrope is one Midwestern corn farmer who, through the last two seasons, has battled depressed corn prices. Many farmers like him have stuck with Trump during his protracted trade war with China, arguing that the U.S. does need to fix its trade policy with Beijing. But now farmers such as Aistrope say these waivers are a step too far.

"Hopefully he’ll take care of us and do things right: Just uphold the laws for the ethanol industry that Congress put into place," Aistrope said.

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On Thursday, the president tweeted about the ethanol industry, hinting that he would announce an aid package to help farmers. The president made a similar move for soybean farmers hit hard by his trade war with China.

Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/your-epa-went-too-far-farmers-hit-hard-trump-epa-n1048011

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Oh great. more tax payer Aid to more farmers--while Big Oil gets profits. damn

Link to tweet

?s=20

Link to tweet

?s=20

[MyOwnPeace]

1. "Trump promised "a great package!"

Yo, Stormy, don't really want to know how it was for you, but, by GAWD, he sure has given US a great screwing!

[Stallion]

2. I Never Thought....

https://images.app.goo.gl/k9u6DMgtdTsRomz39

[sinkingfeeling]

3. More aid for farmers. They're the new welfare queens. I was

raised on a farm and the farmers back then would have been ashamed of taking aid instead of selling crops.

[lunasun]

4. But you folk don't like regulations . Rebels not tree huggers Oh wait it affects you now so sorry

renewables exempted always seemed like a trump move
how did you not guess he lies

[hatrack]

5. Oh, yes, the "jack-booted thugs" of the EPA who . . . .

Oh well. At least they're not taking away yer gunz and making you get haircuts from Teh Geyz!!!

[PatSeg]

6. Seriously???

"Hopefully he’ll take care of us and do things right." Have they been paying any attention at all the past two and half years? He's thrown pretty much everyone under the bus and broken all his promises except for the ones to Putin.

Hey guys, he's not going to take care of you. He thinks you are fools and he played you like last year's Nintendo.

[MattInMN]

7. Things are ugly.

The corn break even price is $4.00 per bushel and $10.00 for soybeans. Spot prices as of today are $3.50 and $8.50. With the EPA wavers, ethanol demand is down, bigly!

At least 15 ethanol plants already have been shut down or idled since the EPA increased waivers under Trump, and a 16th casualty came Wednesday at the Corn Plus ethanol plant in the south-central Minnesota town of Winnebago. The Renewable Fuels Association says the closures have affected more than 2,500 jobs.

The largest ethanol producer, POET, is idling some plants and cutting production by half at others. The second largest producer, ADM, is trying to spin-off their entire ethanol division.

Biodiesel, which is not the same as ethanol, is also being hurt by the same exemptions. With the export grain markets to China closed off, the corn and soy belts will be hurting for years.

Hey Republicans, whatever happened to not having the "gubmint picking winnerz and loozers"??

[Lonestarblue]

8. Democrats should use this against Trump in campaigns.

Ask voters how a billionaire who never left New York except on his private plane could understand the demands of farmers. He relies on his gut, not information, for all his decisions and his gut has absolutely no experience of farm realities—thus bad policies that hurt farmers.

[Python boot]

9. Market manipulation

In the 1890's, J P Morgan was able to manipulate markets and purposely bankrupt farmers to foreclose on their land. Many small farmers will go bankrupt as a result of the current trade war but who will benefit. Control of our food production is the prize.

[olddad65]

10. maybe the farmers will vote a little more wisely next time.

[hatrack]

11. Nope, they'll be voting for the GunzNFetus Party until the heat death of the universe

.

[Yeehah]

13. As long as they have hate radio and Fox "News" telling them what to think,

or perhaps they will start thinking for themselves.

[AtheistCrusader]

12. "We just need President Trump to follow up on the promises he made to us."

OH man. Oh these poor sweet summer children...

Trump is what he is precisely BECAUSE he never follows up on his promises.