Monday, November 24, 2014

EPA's repeated delay on Renewable Fuels Standard means action in the courts and in Congress

"The Obama administration’s decision to put off issuing quotas for the use of renewable fuels this year sets up fights in Congress and the courts over a program that’s been bitterly contested for nearly a decade," Mark Drajam and Mario Parker report for Bloomberg News. "With the EPA nearly a year late in setting the mandates for 2014 under a Bush-era law, fuel blenders were left scratching their heads all year over how much of the additive they were supposed to be using."

The American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers, which includes major oil refiners that want the RFS to be abolished, said today it will sue EPA "for failing to issue the targets by last November, as the law requires," the story says. "Lawmakers have worked to revise the mandates, although no compromise measure has advanced to a vote. . . . Not everyone is threatening to run to Congress or the courts. Biofuel producers praised the EPA’s delay, because they said the agency acknowledged their argument that a proposal to cut quotas would snuff out future investment in their fuels. They say EPA can use its authority to put the program on sound footing."

No comments: