Statewide Iowa — Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley is using some blunt language to describe the EPA’s decision last Friday to grant waivers to big oil companies, reducing the amount of ethanol that must be blended into gasoline.
Grassley says the waivers were intended for small refineries, but are now being granted to the likes of Exxon and Chevron.
Last year the EPA granted 38 ethanol waivers to oil companies and this year has granted 31, but Grassley says there’s “no victory” here for farmers.
Grassley says he’s lobbied President Trump and Ivanka Trump on the issue — and Trump heard from farmers when the president visited a western Iowa ethanol plant earlier this summer.
But Grassley says officials in Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency are blocking ethanol’s progress.
