“In yet another green folly, the lawless Environmental Protection Agency continues to fine gasoline producers for not using cellulosic biofuels in quantities that don’t exist, making only more pain at the pump.”
“In yet another green folly, the lawless Environmental Protection Agency continues to fine gasoline producers for not using cellulosic biofuels in quantities that don’t exist, making only more pain at the pump.”
Who does enforce the courts’ edicts? I assume the executive branch, but that seems to be a blind alley. maybe the courts should have their own SWAT team, like the Dept of Education does. Hopefully, the companies affected will just tell the EPA to go piss up a rope. Or that may bring down the wrath of the EPA SWAT on them. Man, it’s going to be tough to find ammo in the near future.
We could refuse on grounds that it is deliberately harmful to the environment, violating the EPA’s primary responsibilities. However, that would require convincing the lawyers and accountants that the fight is worthwhile. We’d do better with the airborne bacon testing.
Rumor has it that they are drafting a reg requiring all utitlity companies to obtain 20% of their power from pixie dust.
Theoretically, yes. Theoretically, too, a group of people who buy gasoline could allege harm by saying our gas prices have been raised by this policy and the policy is unlawful. After all, if the Sierra Club can sue to stop logging of dead trees when that is in compliance with the law, and when no Sierra Club member can show any harm besides being annoyed, I’d think that actual consumers of gasoline would have standing.
A major problem with suing the government, though, is that any proceeds come from tax funds and normally not by impeding the budget of the agency you are suing. Sigh.
There have been cases in the past where regulatory mandates have spurred development and – when it was introduced – the idea of ethanol from crop residues (opposed to grains which are used for food) was considered to be a desirable goal. However, the cellulosic ethanol producers have had 8 years to get meaningful production facilities up and running (the mandate was introduced in 2005) and there is still only 25,000 gallons available (from the linked article). Increasing the mandated amount is not going to make this go any faster – this is just a tax on fuel producers as recognized by the Court of Appeals. Can the EPA be sued for contempt of court?
@BenOfHouston – The current Bureaucrat mindset is “We are the Government, not the Courts. We write the laws to control the people who voted for the elected officials who appointed us. The Courts do not have jurisdiction over us. If we need to disregard laws to accomplish our political agendas, that’s OK.” As a result, the bureaucrats will disregard court decisions against them and return to doing whatever they feel they have to. Their ‘enemies’ will either run out of resources paying lawyers, or get tired and quit the expensive and fruitless litigation, letting the Bureaucrats get back to the business of mass-production-line tyranny.
Mandates for a fuel that exists in only small quantities, and the production of which does more environmental harm than conventional transport fuels do, and the use of which raises the price of everything in the grocery store, and which delivers less transport per dollar, and…you get my drift.
I’m awfully temped to quote a certain bandit from “Treasure of the Sierra Madre”.
As a non-legal trained observer, the EPA’s 14 million gallon requirement appears to be contempt of court. How can they get trounced by the courts and then do the same thing even worse?