Petersen Wants Gap Year and Brazil Ethanol Tariff Reports Substantiated

  • Friday, 11 September 2020 09:21

Brownfield Ag News

Sep 10, 2020

The chairman of the House Agriculture Committee is eagerly awaiting confirmation on two major issues affecting the biofuels industry.

Minnesota Congressman Collin Peterson says the first involves President Trump reportedly directing EPA to deny dozens of so-called “gap year” small refinery exemption requests.

“That’s great, but we have not verified that. We haven’t actually seen that in writing at the EPA or anyplace else. I hope that’s true, and I hope the President sticks with that and this is not just some kind of rhetoric to get past the election. And then after the election, it goes away.”

During a Minnesota Renewable Energy virtual roundtable Thursday, Peterson was asked (by Brownfield) about Brazil agreeing to suspend its 20 percent tariff on U.S. ethanol imports for 90 days.

“Again, we have not been able to confirm this, these are the rumors. And in both of these cases, they’re quoting anonymous sources. The people say they want to be anonymous so they can speak freely, but we don’t know exactly what this means. So I hope that’s true.”

Peterson says while these are positive signals, Congress has not seen anything official on gap year waivers or Brazil’s ethanol tariffs.

Read the original story here.