Believe it or not, there is something more important than the rain for your future farm income. This is so important that EACH and EVERY one of us needs to do something about it. I’m going to tell you what it is and what you can do about it.

What I’m talking about is the US biofuels program and the attacks it’s coming under from the oil lobby. These attacks are an existential threat to grain and soybean farmers. Think about the worst drought or flood you experienced. Now think of that repeating for ten years in a row. That’s the impact that the loss of biofuels mandate would have on US farms. Bankruptcies of farms that have been in families for generations. Grain left to rot in the fields. As producers, it’s sometimes easy to lose sight of just how much the demand side of the equation has changed in 15 years. Make no mistake, biofuels represent an enormous amount of your demand base, and without biofuels, the surpluses of grain and oilseeds in the market would cause nothing short of the total collapse of the farm economy.

The danger is real. New attacks from the oil lobby have started on our biofuels programs. These attacks rely on a different strategy than before. And the oil lobby will win if YOU don’t do something about it.

The oil lobby has attacked the Renewable Fuels Standard before, and lost. But they are clever. They know nobody likes them, so this time they’re not making a direct attack. Instead, what they’re doing is waging a proxy war through the labor unions that represent oil refinery workers. Everybody loves blue collar workers. Democrats love blue collar workers. Republicans love blue collar workers. So by making the workers take center stage instead of the big oil companies themselves, the oil lobby is pretending this is a labor issue rather than a farm issue and an environmental issue. It’s all despicably subversive. With this new strategy, they may get enough support from both Republicans and Democrats to weaken the RFS. Senators from Delaware have already asked President Biden to waive refinery obligations under the program.

They aren’t letting up on their old strategies, either. The oil lobby has been trying for a decade to convince the public that corn ethanol and soy biodiesel are somehow WORSE for the environment than gasoline and diesel. But the evidence is OVERWHELMING that bio-based fuels have a vastly lower carbon footprint, taking every stage of production into account, and they have far lower particulate emissions as well, which means lower asthma rates for people who live near the highway. Ethanol and biodiesel literally save lives every year. But people are being convinced of the contrary. Even though the oil lobby hasn’t killed the RFS yet, they have weakened public support for it by pressing false claims against ethanol and biodiesel. Farmers are losing the battle each and every day these claims go without refutation.

You’re being outcompeted, and it ISN’T by people who are smarter or harder working than you. You’re being outcompeted by people who are willing to go complain to the government to get their competition shut down. Their complaints are certainly unfounded. But if you think you’re going to win this fight just because you have the truth on your side, you’ll be sorely disappointed. The only way to win is to get LOUD and be CLEAR that you are NOT going to take the wholesale obliteration of the Renewable Fuels Standard sitting down.

What must YOU do?

1) First, copy and past this whole message into an email and blast it to every single farmer and everyone from a farming family that you know. Also include all the professionals in your life that are connected to farming in any way. That includes your accountant and your loan officer and your seed rep and everyone else. If they don’t think their livelihoods will be impacted by changes to biofuels rules, they’ve got another thing coming.

2 )Write a letter to your representatives in the House and the Senate and follow up with a phone call. Write and speak clearly and convey your anger, but of course no swearing or making physical threats. You can certainly threaten not to vote for any of them again if any laws weakening the the RFS see the light of day, whether or not it’s “their” bill. It’s up to your legislators to talk sense to their counterparts in Delaware and other refinery-intensive states to stop this nonsense from moving forward.

These legislators need to understand that you see through the baloney about labor unions and workers. It’s not about the workers, it’s about Big Oil trying to skip out on a bill that was totally avoidable in the first place. These whining oil refineries are complaining about the high cost of renewable fuel credits, but the fact is no one twisted their arm to let their credit requirements blow up in their face. They didn’t hedge their future needs, and it’s as simple as that. As farmers, didn’t you buy a fair amount of your inputs last fall, before the run-up in fertilizer prices? Of course you did, and if you didn’t, that’s on you. You’re not complaining to Joe Biden for a subsidy on fertilizer costs. But that’s essentially what these refineries are doing. They didn’t buy the credits they would need, and now that credit prices are higher, they’re crying their way to Congress. Tell your representatives that they need to tell these whiners to take a hike! You can explain it just as I have, because we all know legislators don’t understand business unless you really spell it out. Make it really clear that this is NOT about workers, it’s just a thinly veiled attempt by Big Oil to make farmers foot their bills.

But even if it were about the workers, the numbers are just as flabbergasting. The senators in Delaware are pushing so “save” a small handful of refinery jobs. Again, these jobs are not actually at risk—it’s the executives that are going to get thrown out for leaving their credit obligations unhedged—but even if it were about workers, these are some of the most highly paid workers in the country. Staffing company ZipRecruiter sees salaries for petroleum engineers in Biden’s home state of Delaware as high as $254,942 per year. Are you taking home that much every year on your farm? Don’t forget the value of union benefits, which can include excellent health insurance and a pension. Is anyone paying you a pension when you turn 65? The notion that the federal government should even CONSIDER legislation to save these cushy jobs at the expense of heartland farmers’ livelihoods is despicable. But if it happens, it will be because YOU didn’t raise a stink.

So get writing. Here are links so you can find your representatives and senators:

https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representative

https://www.senate.gov/senators/senators-contact.htm

Select your state from the list to get contact info. For example, the Delaware senators can be found here, in case you want to give them a piece of your mind: https://www.senate.gov/states/DE/intro.htm Remember, no physical threats! I don’t want the feds showing up on any farms to take away somebody’s father or son. But it’s fine to be angry and let Coons and Carper know they’re scummier than an oil spill for trying to hang our nation’s farmers out to dry.


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For a little more background on what drives the politics in Delaware specifically, see these articles:

https://www.delawareonline.com/story/opinion/contributors/2021/04/08/oil-industry-games-delaware-valley-played-out-opinion/7131621002/

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/exclusive-biden-mulls-giving-refiners-relief-us-biofuel-laws-sources-2021-06-11/

The publication of that last article was a lot of what caused the renewable credit market and corn and beans to fall in price yesterday, NOT just the changing rain forecast. Much lower prices are coming if the RFS loses its teeth. Rains come and go, but laws can last generations. Don’t let the Renewable Fuels Standard get weakened! No credit waivers!

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P.S. GET OUT THERE and start writing and calling your legislators, and tell all your friends to do the same thing!