Renewable Fuel Standard

Two more biodiesel companies have been accused of fraud less than two weeks before the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will likely soon finalize regulations mandating how much biodiesel must be blended into gasoline this year. According to the Associated Press, the two companies are accused of generating fake ethanol credits, known as Renewable Identification Numbers (RINs), and selling them for $37 million:

Federal prosecutors say a 63-year-old Las Vegas man and a 64-year-old...

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Reality is starting to set in for President Obama’s plans to radically alter the energy economy. On Sunday, 60 Minutes, which had previously been a cheerleader for subsidized “green” energy, ran a piece titled “The Cleantech Crash.” Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal ran a story which shows that trucks and SUVs are driving increases in auto sales, not green cars as Obama envisioned. President Obama’s highly-subsidized green energy economy is just not happening. Since 2009, the...
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On the sixth anniversary of the expansion of the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) in 2007, the Renewable Fuels Association (RFA) issued a “celebratory” document explaining why they were so thrilled with the mandates on American refiners. The funny thing is, we don’t need to consult outside sources to see what’s wrong with the RFS or the claims of its proponents; we need only highlight certain parts of the RFA’s own release. As the RFA’s document itself puts it, the expanded...
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Working through the auspices of the Regulatory Studies Program of the Mercatus Center, I have recently published a public comment on the Department of Energy’s proposed energy efficiency standards for residential furnace fans. Truly interested readers can follow the link and read the (brief) comment in its entirety, but in the present post I want to highlight some of the gaping holes in the government’s cost/benefit analysis to (attempt to) justify the regulation. The two takeaway...
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The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has accused another biofuel company of generating and selling fraudulent Renewable Identification Numbers (RINs), marking the fourth case of RIN fraud since the federal ethanol mandate was passed in 2005. A RIN is a string of numbers used for identification when the ethanol industry produces a gallon of ethanol. Refiners acquire RINs as proof of purchase when they buy ethanol from producers, as required by federal law. These RINs—a creation of...
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United States oil production has passed yet another milestone, reaching its highest level in 25 years. According to the EIA, the oil industry produced 8.075 million barrels per day in the first week of December, the most since October of 1988. This increase in production is largely occurring on state and private lands and has been a rare bright spot for an otherwise struggling economy. Technological strides in hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling have made it possible and economical...
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The federal rulemaking process depends on sound science, especially when human lives are at stake. A proposed rule  from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) would stiffen regulations for crystalline silica, a group of minerals used in numerous industries, including hydraulic fracturing. Prolonged exposure to respirable crystalline silica is associated with silicosis, an incurable disease that causes impaired respiratory function and scarring of the lungs. Unfortunately,...
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Imagine an alternate universe in which a new diet craze began in 2005, where fitness gurus urged Americans to massively increase their corn intake. The spiking prices led farmers to substitute corn for other crops, and to bring new land under cultivation to meet the exploding demand from consumers. Then an Associated Press investigation reveals the dark side to the new fad: Five million acres of land taken out of conservation and turned into farmland, wetlands filled, and water sources...
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In a previous post we discussed the EPA’s proposed reduction to the 2014 biofuel mandate: Because motor vehicle consumption of gasoline has risen more slowly than legislators assumed back in 2007 when the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) statute was updated, the originally mandated targets would have required refiners to surpass the “blend wall.” In other words, the original mandates would have forced refiners to put more ethanol into the nation’s fuel mix than would be safe for many...
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[caption id="attachment_1696" align="alignright" width="300"] Image: Flickr/snake.eyes[/caption] The Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee held a hearing this week on the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS). The hearing comes on the heels of the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) proposal to reduce the total volume obligation for 2014. Testifying at the hearing, American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM) President Charles Drevna  explained some of the flaws with...
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