Posted on 11/25/2013 3:27:29 AM PST by markomalley
(CNSNews.com) – The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) decision last week to reduce the amount of ethanol in the nation’s fuel supply for the first time is a welcome acknowledgment that the regulation was little more than a “Soviet-style production quota,” according to Marlo Lewis, senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI).
“Like all central planning schemes, there comes a point where even the commissar has to admit that it’s just not working,” Lewis said in a statement.
On Nov. 15, EPA announced that it “is proposing a cellulosic biofuel volume for 2014 that is below the applicable volume specified in the [2007 Energy Independence and Security] Act,” due in part to the fact that only 20,000 gallons of cellulosic biofuels were produced last year, “in lower volumes than foreseen by statutory targets,” according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).
Those “statutory targets” required “1 billion gallons in 2013, increasing to 16 billion gallons by 2022,” EIA reported. But actual production of ethanol from wood, grass and inedible plant material didn’t even come close.
EPA scaled back its Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) program, which has been in effect since 2007, from 18.15 billion gallons to 15.21 billion gallons in 2014 after an Associated Press investigation revealed that “even as environmental policy, the RFS is a bust.”
“As farmers rushed to find new places to plant corn, they wiped out millions of acres of conservation land, destroyed habitat and polluted water supplies. Five million acres of land set aside for conservation — more than Yellowstone, Everglades and Yosemite National Parks combined — have vanished on Obama's watch,” AP reported. “The consequences are so severe that environmentalists and many scientists have now rejected corn-based ethanol as bad environmental policy.”
Instead of scaling back the ethanol mandate, Lewis says, Congress should just repeal it.
“Even if the RFS did not inflate food prices, increase pain at the pump, exacerbate world hunger, expand aquatic dead zones or contribute to habitat loss, Congress should still repeal it because the RFS flouts the core constitutional principal of equality under the law,” Lewis said. “The RFS literally compels one industry to purchase, process and sell other industries’ products.”
End all Ethanol mandates. Now.
“The RFS literally compels one industry to purchase, process and sell other industries’ products.”
What?
They can’t write the words?
Big Oil!
So now if they do away with ethanol they will kill the price of corn and screw over the farmers.
Why does everything Obama does turn to sh*t ?
Never mind, I know the answer.
-——statutory targets——
Is it a statutory target or a statutory requirement?
If statuary is the operative word, how can the EPA revise it?
Ethanol:
-Reduces gas mileage such that your “Pollutants per mile” remain unchanged.
-Is more expensive to produce that petroleum based gasoline.
-Diverts food sources that would better be used to feed people and livestock.
-Is used to buy conservative farm votes to bargain for liberal policies.
-Is bad for your engines life and performance.
But what is the new 5 year ethanol plan, Comrade?
PS -Let’s not forget that this is a George “Dubya” Bush program.
Just another reminder that republicans have played a big part in dragging the country down to the low point we see today.
Corn Lobby is working overtime. More envelopes being passed as I type.
Ethanol is Brawndo
I think America is done with the Bush's.
WTF? 20,000 gallons is about one swimming pool's worth. And EPA thinks they can command a billion gallons to be produced?
But not at the point of a gun. Ethanol in certain areas makes sense as a choice. A certain amount is needed for the production of cattle feed (DDG is better than raw corn for cows).
But the “boom town” mentality is nuts. I have seen plants built with water service valves (cheap and weak) in order to get the boondoggle money. I have seen plants built in places where plants should not be (trucking in the corn from two states away) in order to get some Stategov boondoggle money.
As for the land out of conservation, that is another issue. Margins are shriking, and many farmers/corporations are looking at making every last cent out of the land they can. That means cutting up CRP, which is a source of boondoggle money. Many of these guys are doing with if they sell to ethanol or not. Many are LOSING money doing it.
This has also been why the multi billion fertilizer plants that were project to go up this next year have been put on hold. The margins are just to thin.
What I don't know is why they under reported.
The process is messy, with some bi products that suck (not toxic, but not good for much else but land application). I don't see it as a huge growth market yet.
Arg and it uses up food supply. Makes cattle feed more expensive. Poultry feed more expensive.
Yep
It’s just bad policy all around
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