BigEthanol:TheRFScanhelpmitigategas

Big Ethanol: The RFS can help mitigate gas prices! CBO: The RFS is going to cause higher gas prices.

posted at 8:41 pm on June 26, 2014 by Erika Johnsen

• Share on Facebook 1
• 1 SHARES

Well, this is rich.

In light of the recent political turmoil in Iraq and the potential for disruption to the global oil supply, Big Ethanol would like you to know that the Renewable Fuel Standard — i.e., the mandate through which the federal government forces you to buy ethanol by forcing U.S. refiners to blend an ever-increasing volume of so-called biofuels into the country’s oil supply — is a great way to enhance our domestic energy security and mitigate the impact of any surges in gasoline prices. They even made an advertisement about it, via HuffPo:

The liberal group Americans United For Change released a new television ad Thursday tying the fight over domestic renewable fuel standards to the situation in Iraq.

The ad highlights concerns that the current violence in Iraq may cause an increase in gasoline prices. “More chaos over there means higher prices here,” the ad warns. …

The group said the ad buy is worth $400,000. The ads will run in the Washington, D.C. area this Sunday during “Meet the Press,” “Face the Nation,” “This Week,” “Fox News Sunday” and “60 Minutes.” They will also run on MSNBC, CNN and FOX News next week. In addition, the group said it’s planning an “aggressive digital media campaign.”

When Congress first enacted and later expanded the Renewable Fuel Standard in 2007, lawmakers were relying on the crucial assumption that Americans’ demand for gasoline would continue to increase ad infinitum. Instead, innovation, greater fuel efficiency, and an economic recession resulted in slackening demand for gasoline, making the RFS’s requirements and the inherent subsidy for ethanol producers therein costly and unworkable for everybody else. The EPA finally started to acknowledge this reality last year and is currently mulling over whether to relax the requirements for 2014; that’s an eventuality that the Big Ethanol lobby desperately wants to avoid, and it’s trying to capitalize on the Iraqi instability to gin up more support for the mandate that sustains the bloated ethanol industry.

We already knew that the ad’s argument that ethanol means “less pollution” is totally bogus, but as for this latest claim about the Renewable Fuel Standard being a helpful policy to put downward pressure on gas prices? Yeahhhh… no, via The Hill:

Gasoline’s price will increase up to 9 percent, and diesel fuel will rise by up to 14 percent by 2017 because of the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) if Congress does not repeal it, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said Thursday.

The CBO’s analysis estimated that, in order to comply with the increasing mandates called for under the Energy Independence and Security Act, fuel refiners would have to more than triple their use of advanced biofuels by 2017, and would have to use much more ethanol in gasoline than the 10 percent blend that older vehicles can tolerate. …

The agency predicted that the Environmental Protection Agency, which oversees the RFS, will keep the mandate levels similar through 2017, since increasing them “would require a large and rapid increase in the use of advanced biofuels and would cause the total percentage of ethanol in the nation’s gasoline supply to rise to levels that would require significant changes in the infrastructure of fueling stations.”

• Share on Facebook 1
• 1 SHARES

Tags: biofuels, CBO, Environmental Protection Agency, ethanol, gas prices, lobby, Renewable Fuel Standard

Related Posts:

Source from: hotair

The unworkability of the Renewable Fuel Standard, visualized

TheunworkabilityoftheRenewableFuelStandard,visualized

Oh,noes:80percentofbiofuelsproducershave

Oh, noes: 80 percent of biofuels producers have cut back production due to federal-mandate uncertainty

posted at 6:01 pm on May 15, 2014 by Erika Johnsen

•  Share on Facebook

Well, who woulda’ thunk it? The Environmental Protection Agency finally decided to acknowledge the incompatibility of the Renewable Fuel Standard with both America’s declining gasoline consumption and the environmental degradation caused by the production of corn ethanol, thereby obliterating the entirely government-imposed “market” for biofuels — and what do you suppose happens? Via The Hill:

Almost eight in 10 biodiesel producers in the United States have cut back production this year due to uncertainty over federal policies that encourage making the fuels, the National Biodiesel Board (NBB) said.

The report released Wednesday was based on a survey the NBB conducted. In addition to the finding that 78 percent of producers reduced output, 57 percent of companies have idle or shut down plants and 66 percent have reduced their workforces or are considering it.

Almost all of the surveyed companies attribute the industry’s decline to two recent policy developments: the expiration at the end of last year of the tax credit to produce biodiesel and a proposal last year by the Environmental Protection Agency not to increase the biodiesel mandate in the Renewable Fuel Standard.

“Inconsistency in Washington is wreaking havoc on the U.S. biodiesel industry,” Anne Steckel, NBB’s vice president of federal affairs, said in a statement.

“Inconsistency in Washington is wreaking havoc on the U.S. biodiesel industry”? …Yeah, how about we go a little more big-picture and try, “The U.S. biodiesel industry’s utter dependence on handouts from Washington is wreaking havoc on the U.S. biodiesel industry,” perhaps? This major slowdown in production is precisely why, when the EPA announced late last year that they would be reevaluating the annually-increasing volumetric requirements mandated by the Renewable Fuel Standard for 2014 (a decision on which we’re still waiting, by the way), the biofuels industry flipped out — and their respective lawmakers have been engaged in a relentless pander-fest ever since, most recently at a Capitol Hill press conference on Wednesday including Democrat Sens. Heitkamp, Durbin, Klobuchar, Franken, Donnelly, and Cantwell:

“We want to make sure that biofuels are included in the future when it comes to America’s energy,” Durbin said. “When there’s uncertainty about the future of biofuels, there’s uncertainty about these jobs.”

Klobuchar and Franken said Minnesota officials have estimated that the EPA’s biodiesel mandate would cause the state to lose 1,500 jobs.

Yes, it’s always very easy to talk about the tragic loss of the jobs that have been created via direct federal largesse, but what these senators aren’t talking about is the opportunity cost, i.e. the other jobs that would have been created in other and more useful areas of the private sector, if the federal government wasn’t depriving taxpayers of those dollars in the first place. Much like the huge dropoff in the egregiously subsidized wind industry without the surety of their finely tuned array of precious subsidies, the fact that biofuels producers are cutting back without their own mandates and subsidies firmly in place should serve as a red flag about the real and economically (not to mention environmentally) costly nature of this industry.

•  Share on Facebook

Tags: biofuels, energy, epa, ethanol, free market, Renewable Fuel Standard, subsidies

Related Posts:

Source from: hotair

Oh,good:TheEPAfinally,retroactivelylowersa

Oh, good: The EPA finally, retroactively lowers a 2013 biofuels requirement to reflect the fact that the required biofuels did not actually exist

posted at 8:41 pm on April 22, 2014 by Erika Johnsen

It’s an improvement, I suppose, over that one time last year when they actually tried to penalize refiners for not complying with the previous year’s standard which also vastly overestimated the amount of the required cellulosic biofuels that would exist in the real world rather than inside their self-righteous faux-green fantasies, but… that is hardly cause for celebration. Via The Hill:

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Tuesday retroactively lowered the volume of cellulosic biofuel that refiners must blend into traditional fuels, aligning the 2013 mandated volume to the actual amount of fuels produced.

EPA’s original mandate for 2013 was based on a projection that producers would make 6 million ethanol-equivalent gallons of cellulosic biofuel, but just over 800,000 gallons of the fuels were actually produced that year, the agency said. Tuesday’s action sets the cellulosic biofuel blend level at 0.0005 percent, reflecting the amount of fuel produced. …

The year is over, but EPA’s revision means that refiners will not have to use credits or pay penalties for not reaching the target.“Since the cellulosic biofuel standard was based on EPA’s projection of cellulosic biofuel production in 2013, EPA deemed this new information to be of central relevance to the rule, warranting reconsideration,” EPA said in its rule, noting that now that the year is over, its “projection” can be based on actual production.

Let me reiterate that. The EPA devised the standard with which refiners must lawfully comply based on the consistently inaccurate projections with which they plowed ahead for benefit of the two cellulosic biofuels producers in the country (one of which ended up drastically underperforming), and the agency only belatedly “deemed” the fact that those biofuels were not commercially available to be of “central relevance the the rule.” …Ya’ think?!

Sadly, I realize that this hardly even qualifies as “news,” really, since this is just kind of the business-as-usual way the federal government often goes about enforcing things and even more particularly the way the EPA goes about enforcing the Renewable Fuel Standard — but why is this hardly even noteworthy business-as-usual? I often refer to the RFS and all of the ghastly inefficiencies and regulatory vagaries it inspires as the “saga of stupid,” and I do not throw around the word “stupid” lightly. This, my friends… this is stupid. The unabashed cronyism and politicization of it all is enough to make your head spin.

Now, if only they would stop cowering from the sound and the fury of the Big Ethanol lobby and finally release the 2014 RFS standards sometime before the next presidential election…

Tags: biofuels, Environmental Protection Agency, ethanol, Obama administration, Renewable Fuel Standard

Related Posts:

Source from: hotair

APstudy:“Advanced”cornethanolmightactuallybe

AP study: “Advanced” corn ethanol might actually be environmentally worse than gasoline

posted at 5:21 pm on April 21, 2014 by Erika Johnsen

Last November, the Associated Press released their own study that confirmed more or less everything we already knew about the damaging unintended consequences created by the Renewable Fuel Standard: That the artificially jacked-up demand for corn incentivizes American farmers to bring marginal lands into agricultural production, effectively obliterating millions of acres of conservation land in favor of putting more strain on the water supply, pumping more fertilizer into the environment, and churning up more soil (subsequently releasing the carbon trapped within) than they otherwise would. The champions of the Big Ethanol lobby, shameless rent-seekers that they are, denounced the AP’s study as obviously biased hogwash, and demanded that the U.S. Environmental Protection ignore the abundant evidence against ethanol’s supposed environmental benefits by upholding the ever-increasing volumetric blending requirements of the RFS.

If Big Ethanol didn’t like what the AP reported last fall, however, I think they’re likely to have an even bigger tantrum over what the AP is reporting on today — this time, a study funded by the feds that undercuts ethanol’s counterfeit environmentalism even further:

Biofuels made from the leftovers of harvested corn plants are worse than gasoline for global warming in the short term, a study shows, challenging the Obama administration’s conclusions that they are a much cleaner oil alternative and will help combat climate change.

A $500,000 study paid for by the federal government and released Sunday in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Climate Change concludes that biofuels made with corn residue release 7 percent more greenhouse gases in the early years compared with conventional gasoline.

While biofuels are better in the long run, the study says they won’t meet a standard set in a 2007 energy law to qualify as renewable fuel.

The conclusions deal a blow to what are known as cellulosic biofuels, which have received more than a billion dollars in federal support but have struggled to meet volume targets mandated by law. About half of the initial market in cellulosics is expected to be derived from corn residue.

And seeing as how these “advanced” cellulosic biofuels derived from biomass other than corn starch (i.e., in this case, the stalks, cobs, leaves) are technically supposed to release 50 to 60 percent fewer carbon emissions on net evaluation than gasoline, that’s something of a problem. I might also add that “a billion dollars in federal support” is a vast understatement, what with that whole Renewable Fuel Standard injecting a bunch of fake signals into the market by forcing Americans to purchase a product that they obviously wouldn’t without the presence of a federal mandate (despite the repeated failure of the well-subsidized biofuels market to actually provide the requisite amount of biofuels in commercially available quantities, yeesh).

Tags: biofuels, cellulosic biofuels, Environmental Protection Agency, ethanol, gas, Renewable Fuel Standard, renewables

Related Posts:

Source from: hotair

Biofuelsproducers:Noreally,thisistheyear

Biofuels producers: No really, this is the year biofuels are going to take off, for serious

posted at 6:01 pm on April 16, 2014 by Erika Johnsen

I mentioned the other day that, to the detriment of just about everyone involved, the Environmental Protection Agency is still considering whether or not they really will follow through with their proposal to reduce the gasoline-ethanol blending volumes required by the Renewable Fuel Standard, first enacted by 2007, to avoid running the oil industry up against the “blend wall” (the ten percent ethanol threshold beyond which a lot of cars and trucks on the road won’t be able to cope with the biofueled gas). Big Ethanol, of course, has been complaining that this is just a load of waffle invented by Big Oil to artificially stymie competition — but people in glass houses really shouldn’t be in the business of throwing stones, you know? Via the NYT:

“It’s very frustrating,” said Christopher Standlee, executive vice president of Abengoa. “The whole purpose of the Renewable Fuel Standard was to encourage investment to create brand-new technologies that would help the United States become more energy-independent and use cleaner and more efficient fuels. We feel like we are just on the verge of doing that and now the E.P.A. is talking about changing the rules.” …

The energy act’s goal of reaching 21 billion gallons of advanced biofuels by 2022 is now considered virtually unreachable, even by biofuel enthusiasts. “It would take an enormous effort of deploying capital and labor and engineering,” said Paul Winters, a spokesman for the Biotechnology Industry Organization. …

But biofuel producers and lobbyists say the country needs more of their product. “Cellulosic biofuel has the promise to deliver tens of billions of gallons of ethanol to the United States, but there needs to be a market for that,” Brian Foody, president and chief executive of the Canadian biofuel company Iogen, told reporters in a recent conference call by industry executives discussing the impact of the E.P.A. proposal. “We believe it’s critical for E.P.A. to create a segment or space in the market for E-85 to grow and to set numbers that will provide incentives.”

“There needs to be a market for that.” Yes, and since there obviously isn’t one, you need the federal government to artificially keep the fake one that’s already in place going.

But, this time, these biofuels producers are promising, they’re seriously super-duper close to developing the next best thing since sliced bread. Take this brand-new cellulosic ethanol plant they’re currently heralding as the wondrous future of biofuels:

But Abengoa, which received a $134 million loan guarantee from the Energy Department, will be first out of the gate, its plant beginning full operations by early May. The company plans to produce 25 million gallons of biofuel a year at the plant here and has already started a 21-megawatt electricity plant at the site powered by biomass.

Abengoa has developed a proprietary enzyme to mix with corn stalks and wheat straw to produce sugars that will then be fermented and distilled to produce cellulosic ethanol. That more efficient process can increase yields and decrease costs. Over the last four years, Abengoa has improved yields from 55 gallons of ethanol per ton of biomass to 80 gallons per ton.

You know what? Maybe Abengoa really will be all that and a bag of chips. …Or, maybe not, and it still won’t do nearly enough to make its product as attractive on its own competitive merits as other fuel sources. The point is, haven’t we “invested” quite enough taxpayer money and economic opportunity costs supporting costly and failed endeavors trying to find out?

Tags: biofuels, ethanol, investment, lobbyists, Renewable Fuel Standard

Related Posts:

Source from: hotair

GAOtoEPA:You’regoingtohaveto

GAO to EPA: You’re going to have to release these Renewable Fuel Standard regulations sometime, you know

posted at 8:51 pm on April 14, 2014 by Erika Johnsen

Big Ethanol was appalled when the Environmental Protection Agency announced late last year that they might actually acknowledge reality by reducing the required volume of certain biofuels that refiners have to blend into the nation’s fuel supply under the Renewable Fuel Standard. Our economic slowdown combined with technological innovation and increased fuel efficiency have resulted in declining gasoline consumption in the past few years, and the annually increased volume of biofuels refiners are automatically supposed to be incorporating was running the fuel supply up against phenomenon known as the “blend wall,” the point at which the mixed fuel is no longer safe for use in most cars and trucks on the road. This phenomenon has never troubled Big Ethanol, an industry rather partial to the artificially jacked-up demand for their product the federal government mandates into existence, and the industry’s powerful lobby went into an almighty uproar over the proposed change that they’re still battling out.

Whatever decision the EPA goes with, they kinda’ need to get around to making it, since the not-yet-released 2014 standard will be applied retroactively — and as the Government Accountability Office notes in a new report, that is currently inflicting quite a bit of uncertainty on our energy sector. Via The Hill:

The Government Accountability Office report released on Monday looked at three major changes that have affected the domestic petroleum, or gasoline, refining industry, a key one being the EPA’s renewable fuel mandate. …

Since 2009 the EPA has missed its deadline to issue regulations for the renewable fuel mandate, the report states. This year has been no exception. However, the EPA did retreat on the amount of ethanol it is requiring refiners to mix into the fuel supply for the first time since the standards were established in 2007. …

“A late [Renewable Fuel Standard] contributes to industry uncertainty, which can increase costs because industry cannot plan and budget effectively, according to some stakeholders,” the watchdog said. …

The GAO notes that future consumption of petroleum products may increase through 2020 but will not return to past levels. If EPA continues to issue the fuel standards late costs may be incurred by refiners or passed onto consumer through higher gasoline prices.

Oh, look: The EPA inflicting uncertainty and extra costs onto pretty much everything it touches. Something new and different for them.

Tags: biofuels, ethanol, gas prices, Renewable Fuel Standard

Related Posts:

Source from: hotair

Allegedlyimaginaryethanol“blendwall”mysteriouslycostrefiners

Allegedly imaginary ethanol “blend wall” mysteriously cost refiners at least $1.3 billion in 2013

posted at 2:51 pm on April 1, 2014 by Erika Johnsen

When Congress first enacted and then expanded the inglorious ethanol subsidy that is the Renewable Fuel Standard back in 2007, lawmakers devised the rule — requiring that refiners blend certain volumes of biofuels into the country’s fuel supply or else buy credits for an exemption — based on the crucial assumption that the nation’s demand for gasoline would continue to decrease indefinitely as our economy grew. Therefore, they reasoned, the fuel supply would be able to absorb an annually increasing amount of ethanol — but because of increased fuel efficiency and slackened economic growth, that hasn’t been the case at all. For awhile now, refiners have been expressing concern over being forced to run the country’s gasoline up against the “blend wall,” i.e., the point at which the ethanol-gasoline blends are no longer safe for use in most cars and trucks.

Pish tosh!, cried the ethanol lobby, which (as you might imagine) is rather partial to the Standard and the many ways in which it has artificially jacked up the country’s demand for corn and other biofuel resources. When the Environmental Protection Agency announced late last year that it intended to revise the required volumes of biofuels in a downward direction, ethanol producers across the country immediately went into a tailspin of furious denunciations against the oh-so-rent-seeking oil industry’s supposedly illegitimate complaints about ethanol-to-oil ratios, or whatever made-up nonsense about which those greedy oil execs were raving. Even if that were as big a problem as the oil industry was making it out to be, Big Ethanol insisted about Big Oil’s motives, Big Oil is super-duper rich, and can totally handle the extra pressure without passing costs onto consumers.

Or something.

Last year’s spike in the price of ethanol blending credits cost independent refiners at least $1.35 billion, more than three times as much as the year before, according to a Reuters’ review of securities filings.

The tally, which has not been previously reported, is a conservative estimate as it includes only nine refiners that disclosed the figures. Others affected did not specify the cost of buying Renewable Identification Number (RINs), paper credits used to meet quotas for blending biofuel into gasoline and diesel. …

The review also highlights how the impact was unevenly distributed, with independent refiners CVR Refining and LyondellBasell alone shouldering more than a fifth of the cost although they only account for 2.5 percent of the nation’s daily refining capacity. …

Valero Energy Corp, the biggest U.S. refiner with 10 percent of capacity, spent about $517 million on RINs in 2013.

“We were clear that Valero could not bear that cost alone, so much or all was passed on to consumers,” said Valero spokesman Bill Day. The company estimates that it will spend another $250 million to $350 million on RINs in 2014.

Ugh. The EPA has yet to make a final decision on the RFS’s requirements for 2014 (although, yes — they will be applied retroactively), and you can count on Big Ethanol continuing to fight the potential downshift every step of the way. The fact that the Renewable Fuel Standard’s supposed “green” credentials have long since been disproved is of little consequence to them.

Tags: agriculture, biofuels, ethanol, fossil fuels, gas prices, Renewable Fuel Standard, subsidies

Related Posts:

Source from: hotair

ThisiswhyBigEthanolwillfightto

This is why Big Ethanol will fight to the death to fully preserve the Renewable Fuel Standard

posted at 4:41 pm on February 11, 2014 by Erika Johnsen

In a word: Monies. …Major. Cash. Monies.

Federal forecasters expect U.S. farm income to decline 26.6% to $95.8 billion this year, the lowest level since 2010, due to a sharp drop in corn and soybean prices.

The Department of Agriculture projected that U.S. net farm income would decrease due to an almost $11-billion decline in corn receipts and a decline of more than $6 billion in soybean receipts. Corn and soybean prices fell last year as U.S. growers harvested large crops, including the biggest U.S. corn crop in history.

Farm income last year was $130.5 billion, a nominal all-time high.

Farm incomes roughly doubled from 2006 through 2011 as rising global demand for grains and increased federal mandates for corn-based ethanol production drove prices higher.

To review: Via the Renewable Fuel Standard, the federal government incentivizes agribusiness to grow waaay more corn than America actually wants or needs by mandating that oil refiners blend a certain and annually increasing volume of biofuels into the nation’s gasoline and diesel supply (and I might add that agribusiness accomplishes this rent-sought feat by bringing more and marginal lands into production, helping to obliterate what we were once told were the manifold environmental benefits of corn-based ethanol).

So we end up with more corn than we even know what to do with, but when prices subsequently drop — which, in a sane and market-driven world, would be an excellent signal to stop growing so much corn –  agribusiness need not fear because government crop insurance is there to shield them from prices that are “too low.” Why the agriculture sector is especially deserving of so much federal cushioning, I will never understand — and in fact, they’re probably less so than other industries, as President Obama openly acknowledged in his own FY 2014 budget proposal, via the Washington Post:

“The farm sector continues to be one of the strongest sectors of the U.S. economy, with net farm income expected to increase 13.6 percent to $128.2 billion in 2013, which would be the highest inflation-adjusted amount since 1973,” it pointed out. “With the value of both crop and livestock production at all-time highs, income support payments based upon historical levels of production can no longer be justified.” …

The bill expands crop insurance subsidies, which the president had targeted for reduction because of their wasteful, distorting impact on both the federal budget and farmers’ use of land, labor and capital. … Worst of all, it creates two new programs — Agriculture Risk Coverage and a Supplemental Coverage Option — which, taken together, all but guarantee beneficiaries’ revenues never fall below 86 percent of their earnings during years of high crop prices, according to estimates by Montana agricultural economist Vincent H. Smith. This federal largess is subject to no significant means-testing. In fact, people making up to $900,000 in adjusted gross annual income can qualify for payments. Why would a president concerned about inequality endorse such welfare for the prosperous?

But I digress, and anyhow, the agriculture lobby already won the crop-insurance fight for at least the next five years when President Obama signed the latest appalling rendition of the farm bill into law last week. (Ugh.) Back to the Renewable Fuel Standard: Big Ethanol really doesn’t want the artificially bloated demand for corn to be erased with a decrease in RFS requirements, because why should anyone have to back out of what has otherwise become an amply profitable industry when the federal government is there for the lobbying?

That’s why the EPA’s proposal to even just slightly back away from the requirements was such an unwelcome development for Big Ethanol, and why they’re doing everything in their power to try and — ahem — persuade the EPA to reevaluate that decision. The comment period on the rule change ended on the last Tuesday in January, so we should be finding out more soon.

Tags: agriculture, biofuels, epa, ethanol, farm subsidies, lobbyists, Renewable Fuel Standard

Related Posts:

Source from: hotair

Midwesterngovernors:Heynow,theRenewableFuelStandard

Midwestern governors: Hey now, the Renewable Fuel Standard is totally legit

posted at 1:01 pm on December 31, 2013 by Erika Johnsen

No. No, it’s not.

In a joint letter to the president, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad, Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback, Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton, Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman, North Dakota Gov. Jack Dalrymple and South Dakota Gov. Dennis Daugaard argue in defense of the ethanol standard. The letter stresses the importance of ethanol as it diversifies America’s energy portfolio, gives consumers choices at the pump, supports economic development in rural communities and reduces harmful emissions across the nation.

Providing evidence of their claims, the governors point to an Iowa State University estimate that says “corn prices alone could drop 19 cents per bushel based on the proposed rule, which could bring corn prices below the cost of production for many farmers. The proposed EPA rule could also cause a ripple effect on agribusiness, our communities, and the entire economy.” …

“Specifically, we hope that you will encourage the EPA to increase the biodiesel volume to reflect current production levels, modify the cellulosic target to match production expectations, and reinstate the statutory conventional renewable fuel target since there is clearly no domestic supply shortage.” …

Yes, by all means, please do try to delude us all further about how the Renewable Fuel Standard somehow isn’t merely a shameless piece of corporate pork for the agribusiness lobby that mandates that energy companies integrate a politically-determined volume of ethanol into the fuel supply and hence forces consumers to purchase a product for which there would clearly be no free-market demand otherwise. Please continue to dismiss the fact that the RFS is actually a net detriment to the environment and that it negatively impacts the prices of food and gasoline, and subsequently that the EPA actually shouldn’t acknowledge this reality by finally relenting on the increased-volume requirements that would force refiners to blend a higher amount of ethanol into our gasoline than is safe for use in cars and trucks. Really, don’t let the obviousness of there being “no domestic supply shortage,” since the federal government is deliberately instigating an artificial incentive for more supply, stop you.

Five out of six of those aforementioned governors are Republicans, by the way. The ability to deride subsidies and federal intervention in the free market all day long, but then miraculously come up with reasons why just a few certain subsidies really are beneficial and worthwhile, is truly quite amazing.

Tags: biofuels, ethanol, Renewable Fuel Standard, Republicans, special interests, subsidies

Related Posts:

Source from: hotair

Hallelujah:AversiontotheRenewableFuelStandardseems

Hallelujah: Aversion to the Renewable Fuel Standard seems to be catching on in Congress

posted at 8:31 pm on December 12, 2013 by Erika Johnsen

This certainly isn’t the first time the Senate has introduced legislation designed to mitigate the many economically injurious effects of Renewable Fuel Standard, that insidious little mandate that manipulates the market on behalf of biofuels interests by requiring refiners to blend an ever-increasing volume of the stuff into the fuel supply, but none of the previous efforts have really managed to gain much traction despite their bipartisan support. The growing public consciousness of corn ethanol’s negative environmental effects and its impact on food and gas prices has been catching on, however, in conjunction with increased cries of exasperation coming from oil and auto industries that find themselves running up against the problematic “blend wall” at which they are required to blend a higher concentration of ethanol than is deemed safe for use in cars and trucks. If even the EPA can’t pretend any longer that this policy is a particularly good idea, everybody else is going to have rather a rough time of it, which gives me renewed hope for the legislation coming out of the Senate. Via The Hill:

A group of eight senators unveiled legislation Thursday to repeal the federal Renewable Fuel Standard’s contentious ethanol mandate, saying regulations are pushing up corn prices and threatening the oil-and-gas industry.

Introduced by Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), the Corn Ethanol Mandate Elimination Act of 2013 would effectively repeal requirements for the amount of ethanol that is blended into gasoline.

“The time to end the corn ethanol mandate has arrived,” Coburn said in a written statement. “This misguided policy has cost taxpayers billions of dollars, increased fuel prices and made our food more expensive.”

“Under the corn ethanol mandate in the RFS, roughly 44 percent of U.S. corn is diverted from food to fuel, pushing up the cost of food and animal feed and damaging the environment,” [Feinstein] said.

Co-sponsors of the bill include Richard Burr (R-N.C.), Susan Collins (R-Maine), Bob Corker, (R-Tenn.), Kay Hagan (D-N.C.), Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), Jim Risch (R-Idaho) and Patrick Toomey (R-Pa.).

And that’s not even the only piece of new legislation in the works, via National Journal:

Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., and Senate Environment and Public Works Committee ranking member David Vitter, R-La., touted legislation they have been working on together to amend the mandate, which requires blenders to mix ethanol with gasoline, during a joint hearing held Wednesday by the committee and its Clean Air and Nuclear Safety Subcommittee.

Neither senator spelled out the details of the bill, which has not yet been formally introduced, but Cardin emphasized that it would drawdown the corn-based ethanol portion of the mandate while protecting the quotas for advanced biofuels.

“[The RFS] needs to be better balanced for energy security, food security, and motor safety. There are more efficient renewable-energy sources in the advanced biofuels, and that’s what we should be focusing our attention [on],” Cardin said, adding that he and Vitter are looking for ways to “make aggressive reductions on the volume mandates for corn-based ethanol.”

Unfortunately, both of the bills sound relatively weaksauce in aiming to scrap the required corn-ethanol volumes rather than getting rid of the mandate altogether, but it is a step in the right direction — and perhaps in this sad, bitter day and age of big-government inertia, this is realistically the best intermediate step for which we can hope. …Ugh.

Tags: environmentalism, King Corn, lobbyists, Renewable Fuel Standard, Senate

Related Posts:

Source from: hotair

EPAontheRenewableFuelStandard:Uhm,we’re

EPA on the Renewable Fuel Standard: Uhm, we’re totally just now realizing that this is unrealistic and inadvisable

posted at 1:01 pm on December 11, 2013 by Erika Johnsen

It is one heck of a bizarre, twisted role reversal when the Environmental Protection Agency is the one acting as the voice of reason in any of their countless political battles, but I take it as a testament to just how deeply messed up this entire Renewable Fuel Standard debacle really is. Big Ethanol flew into an almighty uproar last month when the EPA announced that they were finally planning to relent on their scheduled increases to the biofuel volumes that refiners are required to blend into the nation’s fuel supply, and the powerful lobby has been hinting that they will challenge the EPA’s legal authority to make any adjustments to the RFS other than ones that continue to expand the mandate.

In other words, ethanol producers would really like the EPA to just flatly deny the undeniable reality that refiners are running up against the “blend wall,” a.k.a. the point at which mixing the required volumes will exceed the 10 percent ethanol threshold that auto manufacturers deem acceptable for use in cars and trucks, largely because the RFS’s crucial assumption that Americans will continue to consume an ever-increasing amount of gasoline hasn’t actually panned out.

Keeping up the charade is a completely unrealistic stance on which I don’t think even the EPA is willing to double down, as one official testified in a Congressional hearing today, via The Hill:

A top Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) official said on Wednesday that the agency’s biofuel program has led to an unrealistic demand for petroleum refiners, a confirmation of warnings that have long been made by oil companies.

Christopher Grundler, the head of the EPA’s Transportation and Air Quality Office, told the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee that the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) has threatened to force petroleum refiners to mix a blend of gasoline that cars can’t use. …

“We’re recognizing that the blend wall has been reached,” he said during Wednesday’s hearing on the annual mandate.

“Reaching the blend wall clearly presents constraints to using higher ethanol quantities because of the infrastructure and other market limitations,” Grundler added. …

Many car companies have told drivers that using a blend of gasoline with 15 percent ethanol could void their warranties. The driving club AAA has also warned that the blend is “potentially damaging” and could drive up gas prices at the pump.

Of course, the EPA has known for ages that this particular piece of corporate pork was a market-inflating, price-spiking, not-”green” endeavor that they only pretended to like because it helped lengthen the list of their super awesome, “all of the above” climate-change plans, but the total failure of the RFS to spur the commercial cellulosic ethanol production on which they were hanging their grandiose hopes is well past the point of political dismissal.

Tags: Environmental Protection Agency, ethanol, farmers, lobbyists, Renewable Fuel Standard

Related Posts:

Source from: hotair

Iowagovernormakingtheroundsindefenseof

Iowa governor making the rounds in defense of the indefensible, i.e., the Renewable Fuel Standard

posted at 4:41 pm on December 3, 2013 by Erika Johnsen

Last month’s news that the Environmental Protection Agency is finally, mercifully considering easing up on their hitherto absurdly intractable commitment to the Renewable Fuel Standard — the environmentally degrading, price-hiking, and corporate-pork-tossing federal mandate that requires refiners to blend the country’s fuel supply with ever-increasing volumes of certain types of biofuels, or else purchase from a limited number of available credits for exemption — was greeted with cheers by just about everyone, minus of course Big Ethanol’s many lobbyists and the politicians who unfailingly cater to them.

The corn lobby has been running every play they can think of to convince the Obama administration that it somehow actually would not be in their interest to finally, if obliquely, fess up to the fact that they’ve only been supporting ethanol these past few years in order to add another grandiose “green” feather to their cap of munificent “all of the above” energy plans, but the increasing exposure of ethanol’s true and definitively not-”green” colors are depriving it of its erstwhile attractions in that arena. They’re ready to challenge the EPA’s [ever-questionable] legal authority to even move anywhere but forward with the Renewable Fuel Standard at all, but I think they’re hoping to head off the problem before it comes to that, if they can. Via the DesMoines Register:

Gov. Terry Branstad said today he will be testifying Thursday at a public hearing in Virginia sponsored by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on a proposed rule to weaken the federal government’s Renewable Fuel Standard.

The governor said in a statement that he will offer strong public support for the Renewable Fuel Standard, which he contends the EPA is seeking to dismantle, potentially causing significant economic harm to Iowa families.

And more from the National Journal:

It’s not his first Beltway visit in defense of the RFS. In late October, Branstad met with administration officials from the Office of Management and Budget, which was then reviewing 2014 RFS levels. His pleas evidently went unheard, as EPA announced reduced levels for many renewable fuels last month. Among the officials Branstad met with was Dan Utech, who has since been named President Obama’s top climate and energy adviser.

While Branstad’s first pitch didn’t sway EPA’s initial level-setting, it’s unlikely his follow-up appeals during the mandate’s public comment period will cause the agency to rethink its ruling.

One would hope not, but he may as well give it his best go; the, ahem, Republican governor is going to be running for his sixth term in short order, and with plenty of Iowans all about providing the corn industry with as much artificial market support as it can get, it certainly can’t hurt to knock the Obama administration for having the audacity to even think about partially walking back the RFS. It ain’t the full repeal that America needs and deserves, but it’s something.

Tags: agriculture, Environmental Protection Agency, ethanol, Iowa, Obama administration, Renewable Fuel Standard

Related Posts:

Source from: hotair

BigEthanol’sbadweekjustgotworse:EPA

Big Ethanol’s bad week just got worse: EPA announces reduction to 2014 biofuels requirements

posted at 2:41 pm on November 15, 2013 by Erika Johnsen

The corn ethanol lobby has not been having a good week, with industry representatives busily hitting back against an in-depth Associated Press investigation that shines just a little too much light on the longstanding but uncomfortable fact that the federal government’s enthusiastic enforcement of the 2007 Renewable Fuel Standard is definitively not the “green” climate-change solution its proponents like to avidly pretend it is, but rather just the opposite.

The Renewable Fuel Standard requires the country’s refiners to blend a certain amount of biofuels into the fuel supply, but oil companies have lately been warning that the annually increasing total amount of biofuels they are required to use combined with slackening demand for gasoline is running them up against the “blend wall,” the point at which most cars can no longer handle the amount of ethanol in the mixed fuel. In October, a rather controversial rumor went around that the Environmental Protection Agency might finally be considering acknowledging this reality by partially easing up on the required biofuels quotas, which in turn sparked a slew of furious lobbying from both sides with Big Ethanol arguing that not furthering the consumer mandate would more or less amount to a national travesty.

Boom. Via the Washington Post:

The Environmental Protection Agency on Friday proposed smaller requirements for biofuel use in 2014, trimming targets for corn-based ethanol for the first time ever and setting ethanol use at 15.21 billion gallons, just under 10 percent of motor fuel and 14 percent lower than targets established by Congress in 2007.

The agency’s proposal angered farm groups, corn ethanol producers and supporters of biodiesel, but it mollified oil companies, which have long argued that if the content of ethanol in motor fuel exceeded 10 percent — known as the blend wall — it might damage cars, motorcycles and lawn mowers. Groups representing ethanol makers say that mixing significantly higher levels of ethanol with gasoline would not harm vehicles.

“Facts are facts,” said Stephen H. Brown, vice president for governmental affairs at the oil refiner Tesoro. “They’re so stubborn even this administration has to accept them.”

“They’re capitulating to the oil companies,” Bob Dinneen, president of the Renewable Fuels Association, said of the administration. He said EPA’s proposed targets would hurt farmers and violate the spirit of the renewable fuels standard Congress adopted. “The RFS was about forcing marketplace change,” he said, “and EPA is giving the oil companies a get of jail free card.”

“The RFS was about forcing marketplace change.” …Yes, how in the world could that have ever gone wrong?

Tags: Environmental Protection Agency, environmentalism, ethanol, farmers, lobbyists, Obama administration, Renewable Fuel Standard

Related Posts:

Source from: hotair