Where’s the quid pro quo?
That question animates opposition to the impeachment of US President Donald Trump. As the administration’s latest gift to ethanol suppliers makes clear, though, a better question exists. In this presidency, where is there no quid pro quo? With Trump, everything’s a deal.
No position will be taken here on whether Trump should be impeached by the House of Representatives and, if impeached, convicted by the Senate. The issue is fundamentally political and not specifically related to oil and gas. But controversy about it includes a diversion relevant to the Environmental Protection Agency’s newly proposed expansion of the mandate for biofuels, especially ethanol. To the US refining industry, that’s important indeed.
Preemptive squeezing
Many impeachment opponents fixate on the absence of a stated quid pro quo in Trump’s July 25 telephone conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Nowhere in a summary report of that call does Trump say he would release military assistance for Ukraine from inexplicable suspension or schedule a meeting Zelensky wanted if only Zelensky would investigate a political rival or chase suspicion about 2016 election meddling. To Trump’s defenders, the absence of a bold-lettered, something-for-something deal in the record means no impeachable offense occurred.
But technicality can’t hide the obvious. Preemptive squeezing is a signature tactic in Trump’s dealings with non-US leaders. Pressure on Zelensky clearly existed in the forms of undelivered weapons needed by the Ukrainian leader in his country’s conflict with Russia and of the White House visit he craves for a political lift. On the phone with Zelensky, the president even asked out loud for a favor, the political nature of which is unmistakable, in response to the Ukrainian president’s mention of military aid. The quid pro quo was unstated but present. It’s difficult to read the phone record any other way.
An explicit quid pro quo is not essential to the conclusion, from information now available, that Trump used his office to seek a favor helpful to his 2020 political campaign. The crucial question is whether that behavior warrants impeachment. Arguments should focus there.
Quid pro quo is no less at work—again, not explicitly—in the EPA’s ethanol expansion. Ethanol makers and other agricultural interests falsely blame business distress of several causes on exemptions granted to small refiners from ethanol-blending requirements. EPA obligingly proposes to leave the exemptions in place but to compensate by raising biofuel requirements on nonexempt refiners. It also will consider raising the conventional-biofuel mandate beyond 15 billion gal/year—the current requirement rendered unachievable by market realities with 10 vol % ethanol in gasoline.
The expansion would move toward broadened requirements for 15% ethanol blending, a priority goal of the ethanol lobby opposed not only by refiners but also by automakers and small-engine manufacturers. It thus would extend without fixing the broken Renewable Fuel Standard program. It would benefit ethanol makers and corn growers while hurting everyone else. It would serve no national interest. And it would not happen if Iowa were not the first state in which political parties select their candidates for presidential elections. Iowans will caucus in February.
“President Trump has once again demonstrated that he is a champion for our nation’s farmers and rural America,” crowed Agriculture Sec. Sonny Perdue on Oct. 4 after the EPA published its RFS proposal. EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler pandered, too. “President Trump’s leadership has led to an agreement that continues to promote domestic ethanol and biodiesel production, supporting our nation’s farmers and providing greater energy security,” he said, not bothering to explain how biofuel boosts energy security in a chronically oversupplied oil market.
Dependence on favors
The ethanol industry can’t outgrow its dependence on government favors secured by political support. Even without market-twisting mandates, refiners would add the material to gasoline to boost octane. Yet ethanol interests always want more. And Iowan presidential caucuses occur every 4 years.
Quid pro quo? With ethanol and its latest fan in the White House, always.