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Friday, August 9th, 2019.

And it's a fairly quietish, August, D.C. afternoon. And I get a phone call from one of

my sources saying I should be expecting something on smaller, fine re waivers and it's around

to 33. And I'm like, when the day is about to end, the week is about to end. And he's

like, they put don't go to that happy hour. I'm like, great. Fantastic.

Humera Pemuk covers energy for Reuters and she'll be the first to tell you that it's not the

most breakneck beat in journalism, which made this call all the more out of the ordinary.

So I start making calls and then the decision comes and all hell breaks loose.

Statements from cornstates, lawmakers, trade groups, industry groups start raining on me.

Criticizing, slamming this decision. Mind you, some of these groups are like completely

pro-presidents, they're mostly Republican and these statements are fuming.

A few weeks ago, the Environmental Protection Agency decided it would allow 31 oil refineries

to bypass a requirement to mix a certain amount of ethanol into their fuel. As you might

know, ethanol is a biofuel mostly made from corn. The more ethanol refiner's add into

their oil, the more farmers get to move their product.

I remember hearing the president say that he's the best thing to ever happen to farmers.

As a matter of fact, that's a joke. He's creating problems that are hurting our farming community.

...