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Heritage
Foundation
Court
Strikes Down EPA Biofuel Mandate
The
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
cannot impose a mandate for a non-existent product and then punish
companies
for failing to use said non-existent product, the U.S. Court of Appeals
for the
D.C. Circuit ruled.
That
non-existent product? Cellulosic biofuels,
a type of ethanol made from non-food sources such as wood chips,
switchgrass,
and non-edible feedstock.
The
court ruled that the EPA can set renewable
fuel production standards as a means to stimulate economic development,
but it
cannot punish companies who fail to meet those standards.
“Do
a good job, cellulosic fuel producers. If
you fail, we’ll fine your customers,” the judges wrote.
In
2007, the EPA mandated that 250 million
gallons of cellulosic biofuels be produced in 2011 and 500 million
gallons in
2012. The problem was that no company could make the product
commercially
viable, so the EPA lowered its 2012 goal to 8.65 million gallons. Even
that
didn’t help, because absolutely zero gallons were produced in 2010 and
2011.
Companies did manage to produce 22,000 gallons in 2012, but that still
meant it
was commercially non-existent.
Read
the rest of the article at Heritage
Foundation
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