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Van Orden: Midwest coalition stood up for farmers & ethanol
A Wisconsin congressman says Midwestern representatives stood up for farmers and the ethanol industry while working on the debt ceiling bill.
Third District Republican Derrick Van Orden tells Brownfield the original Limit, Save, and Grow Act was 320 pages designed to raise the debt ceiling but also cut spending, but he and staff members identified things that would negatively impact the district, like the cuts to ethanol tax credits. “And what that was, predominantly was removing all of these provisions from the law that help our ethanol producers and corn growers, and I just said I can’t vote for that.”
Van Orden praised House Speaker Kevin McCarthy for bringing Midwestern members together to discuss the problems in the original bill and taking three of Van Orden’s seven proposed amendments which preserve ethanol tax credits including the renewable aviation fuels credits. “We stood firm together with the speaker saying that we’re just not going to vote for this because this would have a devastating effect on, not just the farmers or the ethanol producers, but the truck drivers that move that product, and more importantly, every single consumer in our districts would be hurt by this.”
In the end, Van Orden says Speaker McCarthy agreed to reinstate the ethanol tax credits, including the renewable aviation fuel credits to the bill. Van Orden says if the Senate sends the bill back with the ethanol credits removed, he will not vote for it.
