Governor Kim Reynolds. (file photo)

Governor Kim Reynolds says on Tuesday night she checked with Vice President Pence whether there has been progress on a deal to boost the amount of ethanol blended into gasoline.

“He just said as far as he knew, things were moving forward,” Reynolds said early this afternoon. “…Didn’t have a lot of details, but didn’t raise any concerns either.”

Reynolds is in Washington, D.C. for meetings of the American Workforce Policy Advisory Board. She flew to Washington last Thursday for a meeting in the White House to discuss ethanol policy and Reynolds told reporters today that President Trump verbally signed off on the top two priorities for ethanol industry advocates.

“The devil’s in the details, so I want to see it in writing,” Reynolds said during a telephone conference call, “but what we verbally agreed on, I think, will give some assurances to the industry moving forward.”

President Trump met with senators from oil-producing states yesterday and Iowa Senator Grassley has confirmed Trump is “tired of dealing” with the issue.

As Radio Iowa and KICD Radio reported Monday, Reynolds invited President Trump in Iowa to unveil the agreement — if it turns out to be in ethanol’s favor.

“I offered Iowa if the agreement that we verbally agreed to — I said we would be more than happy to host you in the state for that,” Reynolds said today, “again, we want to see it in writing and make sure we’re all on the same page before we do that.”

The governor is praising the biofuels industry for offering a “unified message” to the president on how they’d like to see the Renewable Fuels Standard maintained.