South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, the Chair and Vice Chair of the Governor’s Biofuels Coalition have written to Congressional Leadership urging them to provide the biofuels industry funding relief from the pandemic. South Dakota Corn Grower’s Association President Doug Noem says that aid is badly needed.

The two Governor’s want Congress to include biofuel assistance in the next round of COVID 19 relief funding. Doug Noem says getting the House and Senate to work together on that fourth package must be done.

He says what’s positive for the ethanol and biodiesel industry is that some plants are starting to come back on line including some in his area of Northeast South Dakota.

In their letter to Congressional leaders, Governors Noem and Walz said that three fourths of the nations’ 204 ethanol plants are fully or partially idled, resulting in workers being laid off, lost markets for farm commodities, and constrained supplies of critical ethanol co-products.