The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said on Thursday it will require fuel companies to blend slightly more biofuels into the nation’s gasoline and diesel next year, angering oil refiners who view them as a competitive threat.Corn is up two pennies per bushel. Ethanol up 63 cents per hogshead and that's about it for old-timey measurements. Wait...mileage!
The announcement follows weeks of lobbying by Midwestern lawmakers and representatives of the corn industry who wanted the agency to reject recent proposals from the oil industry to water down the U.S. biofuels mandates.“Maintaining the renewable fuel standard at current levels ensures stability in the marketplace and follows through with my commitment to ... upholding the rule of law,” EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt said in a news release.Pruitt is expected to travel to an invitation-only event in Iowa on Friday and highlight the administration’s commitment to the ethanol industry.The U.S. Renewable Fuels Standard requires refiners to blend increasing amounts of biofuels into the nation’s fuel supply every year as a way to boost U.S. agriculture, slash energy imports and cut emissions.The law, introduced more than a decade ago by then-President George W. Bush, has been a boon to the corn belt but has upset the oil industry, which sees biofuels as competition and which has been burdened with the costly responsibility of blending.The 2018 targets require fuel companies to blend 19.29 billion gallons (73.02 billion liters) of renewable fuels into the nation’s fuel supply, up slightly from the 19.28 billion gallons required for 2017....MUCH MORE
The Simpsons on Biofuels, Politics and P.R. Spin
Marge: Now, I know you haven't liked some of my past suggestions, like switching to the metric system --
Abe: [stammers a little] The metric system is the tool of the devil!
My car gets forty rods to the hogshead and that's the way I likes it.
[hogshead: n 1: a British unit of capacity for alcoholic beverages]
