Its not just the EPA, but the Department of Energy, and the Department of Agriculture that are co-conspirators pushing for biofuels. The push for biofuels from the USDA was seen as necessary to gain additional funding through increased “relevance” of agricultural research. Seems that there was a diminishing amount of useful scientific research that was coming out of the USDA ARS and biofuels research was one means of obtaining massive infusion of money in a (then) politically popular area. The problem now has become how to continue the charade once the poor energy conversion of biofuels became more widely known. Its not just algae, but grasses and other cellulosic feedstocks for ethanol production. The taxpayers are getting fleeced.
Thanks for explaining the situation in #20. When I first heard of the Navy using biofuels, I thought, wtf?