The Iowa Corn Growers Association (ICGA) is angered by the Environmental Protection Agency’s recent granting of 31 waivers for refinery exemptions from the Renewable Fuel Standard, calling it another destruction of ethanol and corn demand.

Small Refinery Exemptions frees U.S. refineries from their obligation under the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) to blend biofuels like ethanol into their gasoline. Adair County farmer and Iowa Corn Promotion Board District Seven Director Ralph Lents is unhappy with this announcement, but says it’s not the first blow to the ethanol industry, “They did it a year ago and we’ve been trying for a year to convince them not to do it again. So when they did it the second time, yes, I was surprised. But on the other hand I wasn’t surprised, but I was really hoping they’d change their minds because the President always says he favors farmers. Well, this was kind of a slap in our face, because it goes against what he said he wanted to support the ethanol industry and then let this go through was kind of a real slap in our face.”

Lents says the ICPB and ICGA have been urging lawmakers at many levels to convince the Trump Administration to uphold the integrity of the Renewable Fuel Standard. According to the ICGA, the number of exemptions given by the EPA has destroyed more than 2.61 billion gallons of ethanol demand, resulting in the destruction of nearly 1 billion bushels of corn demand.