Letter to Honorable Tom Vilsack, Secretary of the Department of Agriculture - Feenstra Leads Colleagues in Urging Secretary Vilsack to Unfreeze CFAP, Provide Authorized Assistance for Biofuels Producers

Letter

Dear Secretary Vilsack,
As you know, as part of the agricultural economy, the biofuels industry has been subject to immense
financial distress due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Many of our local ethanol and biofuels plants continue
to recover from dramatic demand loss in 2020. While demand for fuel has increased, past losses must be
addressed.
Rural communities and agricultural economies where the biofuels industry plays a major role are still
grappling with the economic impacts of COVID-19. To that end, we respectfully urge you to use
remaining funds provided by the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Stabilization (CARES) Act (P.L
116-136) and the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021 (P.L 116-260), to support our biofuels
producers. These packages passed on an overwhelming bipartisan basis with the intent of providing broad
assistance to producers, and biofuels should not be left out.
While the biofuels industry, along with our other impacted agricultural producers have waited for nearly
two months for the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program (CFAP) to reopen, our local farmers continue
to struggle. CFAP has played a critical role in keeping many of our local farming operations afloat prior
to the Administration's freeze on the Program that started in January. Assistance must resume and action
must be taken immediately to provide parity, and much-needed assistance to the biofuels industry.
We encourage you to expeditiously reopen the program and provide aid to our local biofuels producers
and processors to sustain good-paying local jobs, and keep key markets open to our local farmers. It is
critical that this Administration acknowledge Congressional intent and provide targeted relief to the
biofuels industry as outlined in the bipartisan Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021 (P.L 116-260),
and quickly send payments to our local producers.
We stand ready and look forward to working with you on solutions to bolster Rural America, and to
ensure relief for the biofuels industry along with other sectors of the agricultural economy. Thank you for
your consideration of this request.
Sincerely,