Trump should continue to say no to Project 2025 for the sake of farmers

Simply put, farmers and renewable fuels industry workers who take the time to read Project 2025’s recommendations for agriculture and energy will likely be horrified—as we are.

Jon Doggett and Bob Dinneen
| Guest Columnists

Jon Doggett is the former CEO of the National Corn Growers Association.
Bob Dinneen is a former president and CEO of the Renewable Fuels Association.

The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 — described by a conservative think tank as a “policy agenda” and “playbook” for the next president of the United States — has become controversial as more details about it have emerged.

Former President Donald Trump denies any knowledge of the matter. Certainly, implementing the Project 2025 farm policy and renewable fuels recommendations would be an absolute disaster for agriculture and biofuels in the Midwest.

For the sake of our nation’s corn farmers and ethanol producers, whom we once proudly represented in Washington, Trump should reject it — and do so specifically, clearly, and publicly. The 2025 Project’s farm and energy policies were written by past and potential future leaders in his administration who would shape policy if he were to win in November. So whether the 2025 Project itself survives as a “playbook” for a future Trump administration or not, its specific policy recommendations must be unequivocally rejected by Trump now, or they will likely resurface if he re-takes the oath of office.

For starters, Project 2025 calls for the complete repeal of the Agricultural Risk Coverage (ARC) and Price Loss Coverage (PLC) programs, which are critical safety nets that protect farmers from sudden and unforeseen commodity price declines and income losses. While most farmers would probably agree that ARC and PLC are imperfect programs that could benefit from some tweaking, they have generally been effective. Throwing the baby out with the bathwater is not the answer.

More: Read Project 2025 to see how radically Donald Trump wants to change America

It gets worse. If the Heritage Foundation had its way, the next president would demand that Congress significantly reduce federally backed crop insurance, eliminate the Conservation Reserve Program, phase out some H-2 work visas, and repeal agricultural export promotion programs like the USDA’s Market Access Program. Most farmers know that Market Access Program funding has played a key role in opening valuable new markets around the world for corn, soybeans, meat, ethanol, and even biorefinery byproducts like distillers’ grains and animal feed.

But it doesn’t stop there. Project 2025 recommends barring the USDA from using its discretionary authority to manage funding for the Commodity Credit Corp. Perhaps ironically, restricting the agency’s use in this way would have prevented the previous Trump administration from distributing billions of dollars in aid to farmers hurt by the trade war with China.

It would also prevent the USDA from providing emergency aid to the ethanol industry when COVID-19 shutdowns caused fuel demand to fall by half in the spring of 2020.

More: Project 2025 is an initiative of the Heritage Foundation, not Donald Trump | Fact Check

Project 2025 would also eliminate any technical or financial assistance from the Energy Department for carbon capture and sequestration projects, one of the most promising opportunities to increase the future value and demand for both corn and ethanol. They would also challenge a department of the Energy Department that has done extensive research and development on using ethanol in high-octane, mid-range blends such as E20 or E30 — a promising low-emission alternative to electric vehicles.

Finally, Project 2025 calls for stripping the EPA of its authority to enforce the Renewable Fuels Standard, which has been the single most important driver of renewable fuel production and use in the history of the ethanol industry. Instead, they would hand over the administration of the RFS to a political appointee of their choosing (what the Heritage Foundation typically refers to as “unelected bureaucrats”) who would likely be only too willing to gut the program from the inside and do the oil industry’s bidding.

More: Trump’s Agenda 47 is his official platform, not the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025

Simply put, farmers and renewable fuels workers who take the time to read Project 2025’s recommendations for agriculture and energy will likely be horrified—as are we. To appease the Corn Belt collective, Trump should not only publicly repudiate Project 2025’s “playbook,” but also throw it in the trash and commit to policies that revitalize rural America, maximize the production and use of renewable fuels like ethanol and biodiesel, and leverage the ingenuity and investment of American farmers and biofuel producers.

Jon Doggett is former CEO of the National Corn Growers Association. Bob Dinneen is former president and CEO of the Renewable Fuels Association.