EPA Proposes Three-Year Ethanol Rule

[Webster]

...doesn't the EPA have better things to do, like..protecting the environment?

(Wall Street Journal) WASHINGTON—The Environmental Protection Agency proposed Friday to ease annual requirements for ethanol in gasoline, citing market restraints and other challenges that are preventing the Obama administration from meeting the goals laid out in a 2007 law.

The law requires refiners to blend an increasing amount of biofuels into the U.S. gasoline supply each year, though the EPA has been late in setting the quotas for 2014 and 2015. As a result, Friday’s announcement included levels for all three years, with 2014 numbers set retroactively and close to what was actually produced.

Under the proposal, the levels of ethanol in refiners’ fuel mix will still increase, but less than it would have under the 2007 law. Biofuels represent about 10% of total gasoline consumption in the U.S.

In recent years, the ethanol mandate has come under increasing scrutiny and triggered strange bedfellows, with trade groups representing the oil and refining companies, car manufacturers, livestock and even some environmental interests all opposed to the policy for different reasons. Lawmakers representing these interests are calling for reform or repeal. Lawmakers representing corn-rich states, like Iowa, support the mandate, as do companies that produce biofuels. In part because lawmakers are so divided on the issue, Congress is unlikely to consider changing the law soon.

First established as part of a 2005 energy law and significantly expanded by Congress in 2007, the renewable-fuel standard was created as a way to help reduce carbon emissions and wean the nation off foreign oil when the U.S. was importing two-thirds of its oil. Today, given the domestic oil boom and higher fuel-economy standards, the country imports about a third of its oil and is consuming less gasoline than the 2005 and 2007 laws envisioned.

-Read more: http://www.wsj.com/articles/epa-proposes-three-year-ethanol-rule-1432911962