API announced:
API filed a lawsuit with the D.C. Circuit Court challenging EPA’s Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) volume requirements for 2013.
“EPA’s unrealistic ethanol mandates for 2013 are simply bad public policy,” said Harry Ng, API vice president and general counsel. “EPA issued this year’s requirements nine months late and has once again mandated significantly more cellulosic ethanol than is available in the marketplace.”
The 2013 RFS volume requirements were not issued until August 2013, despite a statutory deadline of November 2012. EPA also mandated that refiners use four million gallons of cellulosic ethanol in 2013, but only 142,000 gallons have been available for refiners to blend so far, according to EPA. The court has already had to rein in EPA’s excessive cellulosic ethanol mandates, according to Ng, but the agency continues to ignore reality.
I’ve never understood how some people gnash their teeth and wail about monopoly and price fixing in the market place and then propose, as the solution, monopoly and price fixing by the government. Despite what many would like to believe, the bigwigs in charge are not stupid. They know exactly what artificially inflating demand does to a commodity. As the saying goes, it’s not a bug, it’s a feature. By effectively banning the sale of a plentiful resource they create shortage, drive up price, and fuel the “peak oil” myth they’ve been trying to sell for years. Knowing that Joe Public will never scrutinize a bunch of regulations aimed at refineries, they’re free to convince people who don’t agree that burning oil is bad that oil should still be conserved because of price.