The Trump administration on Friday waived sanctions on Russian diesel through April 2027, and Republicans are joining Democrats in demanding the deal be reversed.

Congress banned Russian energy imports in 2022 after the invasion of Ukraine. The Friday waiver, tied to a deal President Donald Trump struck with Russian President Vladimir Putin, suspends that ban.

"Sanctions on Russian fuel exports have, for the last several years, deprived funding for Putin's unjust war in Ukraine and provided leverage to help end it," Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., said. "We should be tightening sanctions further, not undercutting them by allowing the import of Russian diesel and risking erasing our leverage, damaging our credibility with allies, and emboldening our adversaries."

Moran sits on the Senate Ag Committee and chairs the Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, which funds agencies including the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.

Senators on the Foreign Relations Committee — including Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., Susan Collins, R-Maine, Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, Ron Wyden, D-Ore., Thom Tillis, R-N.C., and John Curtis, R-Utah — issued a statement Sunday calling the move counter to the 2022 law. Trump on Monday defended the deal, criticizing media coverage of prior European Union purchases of Russian energy. "I made the right choice for the American people," he said.

For agriculture, diesel supply and price feed directly into fuel and freight costs, and the policy fight is not settled.

What does the EPA biofuel proposal mean for soybean margins?

The White House on Friday closed its review of an EPA plan to shield crop-based fuels from oversized small refinery exemptions, putting the official proposal on track for release within roughly two weeks.

EPA said it will reallocate 100% of the difference between projected and actual exempted volumes for 2025 SREs into biofuel blending rules for this year and next. That keeps the industry "whole" and preserves the biofuel policy announced in March, National Oilseed Processors Association President and CEO Devin Mogler told Agri-Pulse Open Mic. Mogler expects the plan public this month and finalized before year-end.

The stakes are concrete. Without the reallocation, the American Soybean Association warns, demand for soy-heavy biomass-based diesel would fall by 500 million gallons and soybean farmers would lose nearly $1 billion in revenue.

The fossil fuel industry wants Trump to reject the EPA proposal, arguing it would raise gasoline and diesel production costs and pump prices. Biofuel and agriculture producers reject those claims.

How fast is U.S. oilseed crush expanding?

NOPA members including Scoular, CHS and Louis Dreyfus are collectively investing more than $7 billion to expand U.S. oilseed processing, betting on feedstock demand for biomass-based diesel. Alternative oils — canola, sunflower, camelina — are drawing more attention, Mogler said.

Soybeans now account for about 97% of oilseed processing, but higher-oil crops are expected to take a growing share of crush in coming years. "It's not going to happen overnight, but I think there's a lot of potential for some of these other crops," Mogler said.

Scoular, the Omaha, Nebraska-based agribusiness founded more than a century ago, recently opened a Kansas crush plant handling both soybeans and canola. The facility is running at capacity, said Ed Prosser, the company's senior vice president of special projects.

"We had about 100,000 acres of canola this year, give or take," Prosser said, noting strong renewable volume obligations have built margin for crushers and farmers alike. Scoular sells meal to local dairies and feed yards, and oil to renewable fuel customers in California and Wyoming.

What else moved this week?

• FDA salt rule. The Food and Drug Administration finalized a rule allowing salt substitutes in the 139 standards of identity that required or permitted salt. The American Heart Association cautioned that patients with chronic kidney disease or heart failure, or on certain medications, must watch for potassium-based substitutes and called for clear labeling and consumer education.

Sulfur squeeze. Rep. Scott Franklin, R-Fla., urged Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick in a letter to raise sulfur supplies for domestic producers. "American fertilizer producers are cutting production now due to the high cost of sulfur needed to convert phosphate rock into fertilizer. Farmers and workers cannot afford more delays," Franklin said. Seven other Florida House members sent a similar letter last month.

Dairy funding dispute. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., called USDA's new 25% match requirement — up to $1 million per center — "unattainable" for the four Dairy Business Innovation Initiative centers in Wisconsin, Vermont, Tennessee and California. The centers have awarded more than $106 million in grants to 911 dairy businesses since 2019. Baldwin asked Rollins to reissue the funding notice without the requirement.

Senate Ag Chair John Boozman, R-Ark., marked National Farmer's Day by pointing to the farm safety net in the Working Families Tax Cuts Act. "We're working to get this critical legislation across the finish line this year for our farmers and rural America," he said on X.

The EPA proposal, expected within weeks, is the next decision point for biofuel demand and crush margins.