U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins headlined the 11th annual Ag Outlook Forum in Kansas City this week, highlighting the Trump Administration’s work to benefit farmers and ranchers so far this year, including in the area of biofuels.
Rollins noted that ethanol continues to be a focus of new trade deals, such as the recent $700 million commitment from the United Kingdom. “In London, we arranged meetings between several of their largest ethanol buyers and our U.S. ethanol producers. Just in the short time we were there, our producers filled five percent more of the tariff rate quota just by us being in country on American ethanol. And in our meetings with importers, we heard that demand for American ethanol may increase as much as 50% in the coming year, most of that hitting early next year, which is good and welcome news for our farmers.”
In addition, Rollins says, they are working expeditiously on other ways to strengthen demand and new uses for biofuels here at home. “American corn and soybean growers fuel America and the world, and we will continue to ensure that they are able to do that, but at an even faster rate – we call it Trump time,” said Rollins. “Under President Trump’s leadership, we issued the highest RVO, the Renewable Volume Obligation proposal in history, which provides the most aggressive volumes for renewable diesel and ethanol ever seen and cuts the RIN credits in half for imported feedstocks, further showing our administration’s unprecedented commitment to this effort. We pushed our regulatory authorities as far as possible in April, when EPA Administrator Zeldin issued emergency E15 waivers, a move that our corn growers sure welcomed. And of course, supported extending the 45Z biofuel tax credits through 2029, while focusing the tax credits on North American sourced feedstocks, not Chinese used cooking oil and not Brazilian tallow.”
Listen to Rollins’ full comments at the event sponsored by the Agricultural Business Council of Kansas City and Agri-Pulse here:
USDA Sec. Brooke Rollins at KC Ag Outlook Forum (35:04)