AUSTIN—An East Texas poultry producer gave $100,000 to a group chaired by Gov. Rick Perry six days after a meeting that prompted the governor’s request for a waiver of federal ethanol mandates that the industry believes are driving up feed costs, according to newspaper reports.

In the three weeks following the donation to the Republican Governors Association from Lonnie “Bo” Pilgrim, Perry’s staff began preparing to submit the renewable fuel standards waiver request to the Environmental Protection Agency, the Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News reported in Wednesday’s editions. The newspapers obtained 596 pages of records from the governor’s office through the Texas Public Information Act.

The donation, given March 31, also helped pave the way for Pilgrim to address nine Republican governors during a closed-door energy conference in Grapevine to explain his belief that ethanol production is increasing feed costs for poultry and livestock producers.

Pilgrim is co-founder of Pilgrim’s Pride Corp. of Pittsburg, the nation’s largest chicken producer.

Perry aide Allison Castle said political donors get nothing but “good government” from Perry. She said he asked for the waiver because of ethanol’s potential negative impact on livestock and poultry producers.

Perry is one of a number of politicians, livestock and poultry producers, and grocery manufacturers who have been calling for a reversal of the Renewable Fuel Standard that Congress approved last year. Opponents of the standard say the push to turn more corn into ethanol is raising food prices and the cost of feed for livestock.

Castle said Perry is scheduled to meet with EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson this month.

This isn’t the first controversial donation involving Perry and the Republican Governors Association, which promotes Republicans and conservative philosophies. Houston homebuilder Bob Perry, not related to the governor, gave the group $1 million during the 2006 gubernatorial campaign. The association then gave a similar amount to Perry, who is now the group’s chairman.

Perry’s April 25 waiver request has national implications because an EPA waiver of renewable fuel standards would affect all ethanol production in the United States, not just in Texas. On Monday, more than four dozen House Republicans made a similar plea to the EPA, asking for a reduction in ethanol production mandates.

Perry pressed for the waiver despite an April 10 Texas A&M University study that showed a waiver of federal mandates on ethanol production would have little or no effect in driving down the price of feed corn for poultry and livestock. The A&M study blamed rising corn prices on the cost of oil, global demands for corn and commodities speculation.

At Perry’s request, A&M did a second study that was released in June. It found that if corn crops were short because of Midwestern flooding, a waiver would significantly lower corn prices.