As you may know, fossil fuel companies are required to blend a certain amount of ethanol each year under a law signed by George W. Bush, but the Trump regime recently granted waivers to dozens of refineries who've now been exempted from the law.
Farmers were not happy when the Trump regime granted the waivers last month because the law, which was more or less a permanent stimulus package for the Midwest, is one of the few things keeping the ethanol industry alive.
Trump responded to the concerns of farmers by saying he was preparing help them in some unspecified way, but that obviously never happened and farmers are tired of waiting.
The leaders of 23 corn grower organizations sent a letter to President Donald Trump on Friday, arguing that his administration's biofuel waivers have reduced demand for their crops. [...]
"The Farmers are going to be so happy when they see what we are doing for Ethanol," Trump tweeted.
But, a month later, they appear tired of waiting for the details to be finalized. In the letter, growers said that a rising number of ethanol plants are closing or reducing production, costing more than 2,700 jobs. If refineries are using fewer soybeans and corn, it drags down the price farmers can get for their crops.
It may go without saying at this point, but the American agricultural industry is going to be a wreck when Trump is out of office. It already is.
Trump is responsible for many of the problems facing the industry today, but not all of them. Moreover, everything wrong that Trump has exacerbated won't magically heal when he's gone. The next presidential administration and future sessions of Congress will have a monumental task in front of them.
It would be convenient to simply say 'fuck 'em' because many farmers voted for Trump and they deserve what's coming to them, but local and regional economies and what's stocked on the shelves of your grocery store depends on what happens in the near future and beyond.
The industry, which is largely conservative, must reckon with its own habit of supporting politicians who deny the things that threaten the industry, like climate change, or actively harm it by waging trade wars.
If Democrats want to reach these people in the next election, they should appeal to their desire for basic self-preservation because another four years of climate change denial and trade wars probably means certain doom.