The House is now out until after the midterms, while the Senate is in its final week before they too recess for state work, returning on November 9. As of this writing, the Senate was poised to vote on final passage of the college sports bill (S. 4668). Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) has also teed up a test vote on the Ratepayer Protection Act (H.R. 9340). That bill overwhelmingly passed the House 417 to 3, and would ask state regulators to consider making large data centers pay for the grid upgrades they require.

Permitting Reform:

Congress has been trying to overhaul federal permitting – the federal review that pipelines, transmission lines, refineries, and other energy projects must clear before construction can begin – for years. Much of it runs through the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, the 1970 law that requires federal agencies to study a major project's environmental effects before approving it. Those reviews can take years, and lawsuits over them can add more. Both parties say they want the process faster.

Senate negotiators came close last week but gave up on bringing a deal to the floor before the recess, leaving it for lame duck session.

Farm Bill Extension:

The current farm bill extension runs out tomorrow, Wednesday, September 30, and Congress has not passed a fourth one. With the House gone, a new one will not pass before the election. The Senate Agriculture Committee reported the Agricultural Act of 2026 on September 16 on a party line vote. But the bill needs 60 votes on the floor and is not expected to get one until after the midterms.

A lapse is less abrupt than it sounds. Many programs run through the crop year, and the hardest consequences under the older permanent farm law, starting with dairy, do not arrive until January.

Three provisions in the bill matter to our industry, and none of them have changed. It authorizes year-round E15 sales. Beginning in 2027, it replaces the annual small refinery exemption, or SRE, petition process with a fixed compliance reduction for refineries averaging 75,000 barrels a day or less. And it requires EPA to reallocate exempted obligations to other parties, except for the first 500 million gallons each year.

On August 31, EPA excused 1.76 billion Renewable Identification Numbers, or RINs, the credits refiners use to show compliance with the Renewable Fuel Standard. That is nearly double the 990 million it had projected. It will be business for the lame duck session, the weeks between the election and the new Congress, and we will report when the Senate schedules floor time.

There are no committee hearings of interest this week.