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Friday, February 23, 2018

Trump calls meeting to get agreement on biofuel policy

"President Donald Trump has called a meeting early next week with key senators and Cabinet officials to discuss potential changes to biofuels policy, which is coming under increasing pressure after a Pennsylvania refiner blamed the regulation for its bankruptcy, according to four sources familiar with the matter," Jarrett Renshaw reports for Reuters.

The question of how much ethanol and other biofuels to include in the nation's fuel supply is a political minefield for Trump, whose Republican allies hail from oil-producing states and corn-producing states. The Environmental Protection Agency had proposed rolling back the biofuels requirement in the Renewable Fuel Standard last year, but faced intense scrutiny from corn-state Republicans. The compromise left the conventional renewable biofuels levels as-is, which displeased both oil states and corn states (the fact that neither side was happy was, as Dino Grandoni of The Washington Post noted, probably a sign that it was a good compromise).

Next week's meeting is an important sign because "in Congress and the administration, we're seeing the most action in years on efforts to end the longstanding stalemate on biofuels policy," Ben Geman reports for Axios.

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