Trump Disappoints Fossil Fuel Proponents and Corn Belt Base as EPA Leaves Biofuels Program Mostly Unchanged

CNBC discusses the release of the EPA’s 2018 renewable fuel standard targets with Marlo Lewis.

Faced with competing demands from two pillars of President Donald Trump‘s base, the Environmental Protection Agency left a controversial renewable fuel program largely unchanged — and neither side of the long-burning debate fully satisfied.

Meanwhile, conservative free-market think tanks that are deeply skeptical of climate change and influential in the halls of Trump’s White House lamented Thursday’s decision.

Marlo Lewis, senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, accused the EPA of caving to pressure from lawmakers like Ernst.

“Although utterly trivial in economic terms, the miniscule [sic] increase is a political victory for those whose regulatory rents and campaign contributions depend on the piratical dogma that, regardless of market conditions and consumer preference, biofuel producers are always entitled to squeeze more dollars out of motorists at the pump,” he said in an email to CNBC.

Read the full article at CNBC.