House Speaker Mike Johnson’s move to create a congressional rural energy council — rather than advance legislation this week boosting ethanol — is prompting a stern backlash from the biofuel industry.
The ethanol trade group Growth Energy on Thursday called the gesture a “disgrace,” adding that the panel to be appointed by the Louisiana Republican is likely to give the petroleum industry more say in policies meant to give crop-based fuels a bigger chunk of the transportation energy market.
House leaders announced the council in a scramble after turning away a proposal by pro-biofuel Republicans to expand sales of higher-ethanol fuel through an annual appropriations bill heading to a vote Thursday.
The lawmakers and ethanol industry groups believed they’d found a way to add the provision, which would lift summer restrictions on the sale of 15 percent ethanol fuel nationwide — a cause that has bipartisan support — but GOP leaders blocked it.
