More than 100 refinery workers, labor leaders and elected officials from Ohio and Michigan gathered in Toledo today with a direct message for President Donald Trump: bigger biofuel mandates would put their jobs at risk.

The rally, held in Toledo on Tuesday, Nov. 10, brought together workers from the region’s refining industry to oppose a proposal to increase Renewable Fuel Standard biofuel blending obligations on American refiners — and to defend small refinery exemptions that facilities facing hardship rely on.

“Refining supports nearly 45,000 jobs in Ohio and Michigan, and 2 million jobs across the country,” said Chet Thompson, president of the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers, in a statement from the rally. “Today’s rally shows without question that refinery workers, tradespeople and union members oppose biofuel policies that threaten their jobs and communities.”

The stakes hit closest to home at the Toledo Refinery, a PBF Energy facility that is one of the region’s major employers.

“Our Toledo Refinery alone is an economic engine for this region, employing more than 500 people full time and up to 1,200 contractors,” said Mike Gudgeon, the plant manager of the Toledo Refining Company. “The overly aggressive ethanol mandates being considered by the president will send refinery compliance costs through the roof — at our facility and elsewhere — putting domestic refining jobs at risk.”

Justin Donley, president of United Steelworkers Local 912, framed it as a promise kept — or broken.

“The President has repeatedly said that he’s protecting jobs and the middle class. Those are our jobs,” Donley said. “Increasing the RFS obligation goes directly against what President Trump has been claiming he and his administration will do. We just want to do our jobs and continue to be positive influences in the community.”

Toledo Mayor Wade Kapszukiewicz joined the rally, noting the coalition cut across party lines.

“In these divided times, it’s worth noting that this coalition is as diverse as you will ever find. We have Democrats, Republicans and Independents because this is so critical to all of us,” Kapszukiewicz said. “We’re asking the President not to sign off on these ethanol mandates. It will hurt jobs in this region. It will hurt our economy. It will hurt all of it.”

The ethanol industry has been pushing for the higher mandates, arguing they support farm demand and domestic fuel production. Refinery advocates counter that the mandates already cost refiners billions of dollars every year, would threaten refinery jobs, and would increase reliance on imported biofuels without helping U.S. farmers or ethanol producers.

The Toledo rally echoed recent appeals to the president from the North America’s Building Trades Union, the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers, the United Association of the Plumbing and Pipefitting Industry, a coalition of small refineries, top ethanol-producing refineries, and the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers in partnership with the American Petroleum Institute.

President Trump is considering the proposal to increase the biofuel blending obligations. No decision has been announced.

Source: American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers

Photo: Walter Siegmund / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.5)