BLOOMINGTON, Ill. — Illinois Corn Growers Association (ICGA) Executive Director Rod Weinzierl was attending the Illinois Farm Economics Summit on December 17 with around 95 central Illinois farmers when word came in that Congress was ready to sign off on a year-ending spending bill in the form of a continuing resolution (CR) that would extend the farm bill, provide over $30 million in economic relief for farmers and extend consumer access to year-round, corn-based E15 ethanol blends. A final version of the CR dumped year-round ethanol from the package at the behest of budget hawk Republicans, who were reportedly urged by President-elect Donald Trump and his advisors to trim “pork” inclusions from the bill supported by Democrats. The National Corn Growers Association (NCGA) was quick to denounce the decision, which was part of an overall slashing of the CR by congressional negotiators from a 1,500-page document to just 118 pages. 

“Corn growers are deeply disappointed that a permanent, year-round E15 solution was not included in the end-of-year legislation package,” NCGA President and Illinois farmer Kenneth Hartman, Jr. said in a prepared statement. “This no-cost provision would have provided a market-driven solution to farmers experiencing low corn prices. We call upon legislators to address this matter quickly in the start of the new Congress and fix this issue once and for all.”

Reflecting on Congress’ last-minute decision to shuttle E15 from the CR, which expires in March, ICGA’s Weinzierl examined a couple of scenarios in which year-round E15 could be resuscitated by lawmakers. 

“The federal budget is currently operating off of that CR which ends in March and the new Congress will have to pass the rest of that budget out until September 30. That is a potential vehicle. We also have the Republicans wanting to do a budget reconciliation and it sounds like the House wants to get something done by March, with a bill done in late April or May by the time it gets through the Senate and signed,” Weinzierl told Farm World. 

“A third possible vehicle is that Congress and the President have to pass legislation to increase the debt limit. That is probably going to occur in the second quarter of the year, possibly around Memorial Day or early June. The CR would probably have the highest probability, because hopefully the Republicans are working with the Democrats to pass the bill. There is quite a bit of support from the Democratic side of the aisle for this, and of course Senator (Tammy) Duckworth (D-Ill.) and Congresswoman (Cheryl) Budzinski (D-Ill.) are very active in trying to get this done, as well as Senator (Dick) Durbin (D-Ill.),” he added. 

Including year-round E15 in the anticipated budget reconciliation package, which would likely be a “Republican-only” bill, would be challenging due to the number of conservative anti-Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS) Republicans in the House of Representatives, according to Weinzierl. 

“We’ve been working on (year-round E15) for over a decade, and it’s not easy to get enough momentum and members on both sides of the aisle to support something like this. It should be easy, but it’s not,” he said. 

While it is hard to estimate the per-bushel impact year-round E15 would have on Illinois and U.S. corn growers, the Illinois Corn director said the increase in demand would be notable. However, he was quick to debunk the theory that corn demand for fuel would increase overnight by as much as five percent with congressional and EPA approval of 15 percent ethanol blends over today’s 10 percent mixture. 

“It is more complicated than that. When EPA first approved E15 they required that E10 or E0 would also be sold at every station, so you can’t just convert every pump at a station from E10 to E15 nor the underground storage required. A lot of your rural stations can only deal with two (fuel varieties), and that second one is often diesel,” Weinzierl said.

“Would the market grow? Yes. Probably not as much as what people might think at first blush that it would, but it would definitely create more demand. That is one thing we need right now to help pull us out of our price slump-slash-recession-- demand. It is much better to have demand for corn than it is to have an expectation that the federal government provides a payment in lieu of demand.”