RFA: Ethanol industry should be ‘let off the leash’
By TAMMIE SLOUP
FarmWeek
The ethanol industry wants “let off the leash” to help provide new market opportunities for the renewable fuels and agriculture sectors, said Geoff Cooper, Renewable Fuels Association (RFA) president and CEO.
During his state of the industry report at the National Ethanol Conference (NEC) on Feb. 25 in Orlando, Florida, Cooper said 2025 was a good year for the ethanol industry but could’ve been so much better.
“We saw glimpses of our industry’s potential,” he said.
Exports were a bright spot in 2025. A record 2.2 billion gallons of ethanol were exported last year. The industry also generated 35 million metric tons of high protein animal feed and a record 4.7 billion pounds of distillers corn oil.
“To put that in perspective, that’s enough animal feed to produce 13 billion pounds of red meat and enough corn oil to generate 575 million gallons of biobased fuel,” Cooper said.
Domestic ethanol consumption hit 14.3 billion gallons in 2025 — the highest in six years.
But the statistics don’t tell the whole story, Cooper said. Ethanol was neck and neck with livestock feed as the top user of U.S. corn last year. Roughly 5.6 billion bushels of corn and grain sorghum went into ethanol last year, “providing a critical demand use for farmers who, despite harvesting record crops, faced the worst economic conditions in nearly 50 years,” he said.
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Some analysts have estimated corn prices would have been close to $1.50 per bushel lower without ethanol, Cooper said.
“Indeed, ethanol continued to provide a lifeline to farming communities that are experiencing incredibly difficult conditions and a dire financial outlook,” he said.
For the past four decades, ethanol has been the shining star of value-added agriculture, Cooper said.
While proud of the industry’s statistics, Cooper said “we could have done so much work as an industry if simply given the opportunity.
“But unfortunately, the renewable fuels industry remains on a fairly tight leash,” he said. “We are being held back from reaching our full potential.”
Specifically, year-round nationwide E15, for which RFA and Illinois Farm Bureau strongly advocated, has come close to being approved by Congress but legislation was pulled twice in the past year at the last minute.
Cooper said E15 remains a seasonal fuel that cannot be sold during the busy summer months, “all because of a nonsensical glitch and regulations that were adopted 35 years ago.”
“Many retailers have made it abundantly clear to us that they are not interested in selling E15 if it can’t be offered to customers 365 days a year, even if the fuel provides a cleaner motor cost option for their customers,” Cooper said.
Congress also has seen significant pushback from a handful of mid-sized oil refineries who say they will go into the red and must lay off workers if they lose access to small refinery exemptions (SREs).
Instead of E15 legislation being included in the latest round of appropriations, the House created an E15 Rural Domestic Energy Council to study biofuel issues and prepare year-round nationwide E15 legislation. While the deadline to pass legislation by Feb. 25 has passed, U.S. Rep. Darin LaHood, R-Dunlap, who sits on the committee, told IFB members Feb. 17 legislation could be voted on by the House the first week in March.
During a panel discussion on ethanol policy and new markets, Jordan Dux, senior director of national affairs at Nebraska Farm Bureau, said farmers often tell him with the large supply of corn in the market from the 2025 crop year, passage of E15 legislation is urgent.
“We have a lot of product out there and this is one of the easiest ways to get it off the market,” Dux said.
Looking at this year, Cooper acknowledged getting E15 legislation passed could be a lift.
“We just need the chance to compete. We need the opportunity. We need to be unleashed,” he said.
Renewable volume obligations update
Aaron Szabo, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) assistant administrator for air and radiation, told NEC attendees the EPA’s proposed renewable volume obligations (RVO) final rule was sent to the Office of Management and Budget on Feb. 25, and should be published in the coming weeks.
A supplemental notice of proposed rulemaking also considers how SREs for compliance years 2023-25 will be accounted for when establishing the RVOs in the final rule. EPA is co-proposing two approaches: additional volumes accounting for 100% or 50% of the 2023-25 exempted RVOs.
Biofuel and ag groups, including IFB, are seeking full reallocation to ensure the small refinery waivers do not hurt demand for products like corn-based ethanol.
An NEC panel with representatives of farmers, fuel retailers and petroleum added RVO certainty soon would be welcome.
“We’ve been afforded so little certainty in the way of production agriculture. … If we know what we’re trying to get to, I think that’s definitely going to benefit farmers,” Dux said.
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