A bipartisan group of two dozen U.S. Senators sent a letter to President Trump, urging him to reject the demands of the oil refining industry, which has called for exemptions to biofuel blending requirements. It’s the latest chapter in a perennial war between ethanol producers, corn growers, and politicians from the Midwest on the one hand, and oil refiners and their allies from the Gulf Coast and Pennsylvania on the other. The global pandemic and the collapse of oil prices has devastated both sides. Demand for ethanol tracks gasoline consumption, so the steep drop in fuel consumption has hit ethanol producers very hard. But refiners are also curtailing processing and shutting down some facilities temporarily as demand has fallen off of a cliff. In mid-April, a group of five governors from oil-producing states sent a letter to the EPA, asking for waivers from the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), which […]