President Bush signed the Energy Policy Act into law in 2005. The law mandated the creation of artificial markets for biofuels like ethanol, as well wind and solar farms. Energy independence is the purported objective, but Senator Coburn recently said Renewable Fuel Standards (RFS) may force two Oklahoma refineries to shut down. He went on to say “we’ve got a regulation out there that’s actually going to kill our ability to provide gasoline to the country”.
Ethanol proponents say the industry is not subsidized but the facts indicate otherwise. Refiners are forced to blend ethanol with gasoline and have to purchase credits (RINs) if they don’t. According to this article, RINs “operate as a flexible subsidy for biofuel producers and are paid for by U.S. refiners.” And the refiners total cost of compliance in 2013 is 19.6 Billion dollars.
The cost of compliance is under the heading “Ethanol’s costs are the refiner’s tax”. This cost is passed onto consumers at the pump, and it will increase if the EPA forces refiners to increase the amount of ethanol they blend. Continental Resources is the largest independent oil company in America. Continental’s CEO, Harold Hamm, says ethanol mandates drive up the cost of gasoline at the pump 9 cents per gallon and force the export of gasoline.
Monroe Energy LLC, a subsidiary of Delta Airlines, anticipates spending tens of millions of dollars in the next several months to acquire credits because it does not blend its own ethanol into gasoline. The company called the ethanol policy “absurd” because it requires more ethanol than the U.S. market can use. But it’s more than absurd, it’s a criminal fraud like Obamacare because falsified climate data was used to justify clean energy mandates.
Federal Clean Energy mandates are just as destructive to the U.S. economy and concept of capitalism as Obamacare. For example, our nation has a 250 year supply of coal but taxpayers are forced to subsidize wind farms. And solar farms subsidize Communist China’s manufacturing.
Check out the post Saudi Arabia, China, and Arab Emirates Own Critical U.S. Energy Infrastructure. Bipartisan leaders allow foreign governments to own U.S. energy infrastructure while clean energy mandates force us to export low cost fossil fuels. And this is their idea of energy independence? Contact your elected officials and tell them to repeal clean energy and Obamacare mandates.
Clean energy mandates are preventing energy independence by limiting use of domestic fossil fuel reserves. In 2013, the ethanol mandate will cost refiners, and eventually consumers, 19.6 Billion dollars. Meanwhile, the U.S. has so much cheap natural gas, domestic oil wells burn off (flare) a billion dollars worth of natgas per year.
We should use natural gas as a transportation fuel because our domestic reserves are equivalent to 3 times the Saudi oil reserves. And natural gas is already piped into millions of American homes, which could be part of a nationwide system of fueling stations. For more info on climate fraud check out this post on Climategate. You’ll find links to the CEO’s of General Electric and Exxon Mobil calling for cap and trade and carbon taxes.