What Do Biden’s New Ethanol Mandates Mean For You?

dilbert firestorm's Avatar
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What Do Biden’s New Ethanol Mandates Mean For You?
By ZeroHedge - Jun 06, 2022, 3:00 PM CDT
  • Biden has proposed new ethanol mandates, pushing for the most ethanol use ever.
  • The move to blend more ethanol into gasoline has been met with mixed responses.
  • Farmers are cheering for the move, though consumers could face higher food prices while seeing very little relief at the pump.
Expect higher food prices but little relief at the pump with Biden's latest questionable move to combat inflation… Last Friday, Biden's EPA Mandated the Most Ethanol Use Ever.

The EPA, after gathering comments since releasing it proposed blending requirements in December, said Friday it will require refiners to blend 20.77 billion gallons of ethanol, biodiesel, and other renewable fuel this year.

Additionally, the oil industry must blend 250 million more gallons of renewable fuel, both this year and next, after a federal court found the Obama administration inappropriately reduced the 2016 blending requirements.

The agency also denied roughly 70 exemptions for small refineries, many of which had been granted under former President Donald Trump.

Corn Growers Cheer

“The Biden EPA is to be commended for restoring sanity to the refinery exemption program,” Monte Shaw, the Iowa Renewable Fuel Association's executive director, said in a statement. “These exemptions have never been justified and were simply being used to illegally undermine the RFS. We are grateful this long nightmare is over.”

Refiners Complain

But Chet Thompson, CEO of the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers, said the blending requirement for this year is "contrary to the administration’s claims to be doing everything in their power to provide relief to consumers."

"Unachievable mandates will needlessly raise fuel production costs and further threaten the viability of U.S. small refineries, both at the expense of consumers," Thompson said.

EPA Raises Ethanol Mandate for 2022

Also on Friday, the Wall Street Journal reported EPA Trims Ethanol Fuel Mandate for 2020-21 But Raises It for 2022

The Biden administration on Friday retroactively reduced the amount of ethanol that must be blended into gasoline for 2020 and 2021 but raised the level for 2022, saying the changes are aimed at helping boost domestic fuel supplies.

The agency can adjust these requirements retroactively, signaling to refiners how much they will have to spend to buy market credits that help them comply with obligations lingering from past years.

Both ethanol and corn prices have risen sharply, and cutting the 2022 mandate potentially could have lowered refiners’ business costs and led to lower prices at the pump, but likely by only a few cents a gallon, said analysts at research and consulting firm Rapidan Energy Group LLC.

“Millions of acres are being pointlessly sacrificed just to grow corn to fuel gas-guzzling SUVs,” said Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Meanwhile the EPA looks the other way as our ocean dead zones grow, water pollution worsens, and endangered species suffer.”

Expanded ethanol production under federal mandates raised corn prices by 30% and the prices of other crops by 20%, according to a report published earlier this year in the National Academy of Sciences. The report also said growing more corn for ethanol led to increased amounts of water pollutants from U.S. farms and negated ethanol’s climate benefits.

Biden’s Ethanol Gas Price Trick

Flashback April 12, 2022: Please consider Biden’s Ethanol Gas Price Trick

In Iowa on Tuesday, Mr. Biden announced an environmental waiver to allow sales of 15% ethanol gasoline blends (E15) this summer. The Clean Air Act prohibits this because higher ethanol blends can increase smog in hot weather. They can also erode older car engines, gas pumps, storage tanks and pipelines.

In 2019 Mr. Trump directed the EPA to let E15 be sold year-round to help Midwest farmers. EPA then rewrote the Clean Air Act, claiming the text was “ambiguous.” The D.C. Circuit of Appeals disagreed and ruled that EPA had exceeded its statutory authority.

Mr. Biden says E15 can save drivers on average 10 cents a gallon, but the waiver will have a negligible impact on gas prices nationwide since so few stations sell it.

It’s also unclear what legal authority EPA intends to invoke. Under the law EPA can only issue emergency waivers to address temporary fuel-supply shortages in discrete regions or states.

Meantime, Congress’s ethanol mandate is causing many small refiners to shut down and the U.S. to import more foreign fuel. Last week EPA denied 36 hardship exemptions for small refineries, so even more could close.

Synopsis
  • 30% higher corn prices with other crops rising by 20%, according to the National Academy of Sciences.
  • Growing more corn for ethanol causes increased amounts of water pollutants from U.S. farms
  • Expect more fertilizer use when fertilizer costs are soaring
  • More summer smog
  • E15 erodes older car engines, gas pumps, storage tanks and pipelines.
  • Small refiners will suffer and some will go out of business allowing Elizabeth Warren to moan about the concentration of "Big Oil".
To top things off, when Trump tried the same thing, the courts struck it down as illegal.

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When it comes to inflation, can this administration do anything right?
MarcellusWalluz's Avatar
It means Taco prices are going to increase.
& Isn't ethanol production extremely inefficient & terrible for the environment ?
The_Waco_Kid's Avatar
It means Taco prices are going to increase.
& Isn't ethanol production extremely inefficient & terrible for the environment ? Originally Posted by MarcellusWalluz

it is. it takes a reported 20-22 pounds of corn in the middle of a food shortage to make one gallon of ethanol to blend with gasoline. so let's not make bread and other food products with corn in favor of a product that has been shown to be bad for gas vehicles, mechanics hate it and it does cause more harmful emissions. this is in stark contrast to the woketard Biden admin who wants to save mother Gaia from ourselves.



so why is Biden pushing this known wasteful "renewable"? because they are idiots.
It means Taco prices are going to increase.
& Isn't ethanol production extremely inefficient & terrible for the environment ? Originally Posted by MarcellusWalluz

It's not good for vehicles with DGI fuel delivery systems either
Why_Yes_I_Do's Avatar
1st thought: They want to starve us and kill our cars/trucks

2nd thought: Yet they wonder why we need the 2nd Amendment






Jacuzzme's Avatar
Yeah let’s burn food so it’s even more expensive than it is already. Good idea, Joe.
1st thought: They want to starve us and kill our cars/trucks

2nd thought: Yet they wonder why we need the 2nd Amendment






Originally Posted by Why_Yes_I_Do
It's people like these that actually give Donald Trump his popularity. These idiots haven't figured it out yet, lol.
It's difficult to even find stations selling ethanol-free gasoline in most areas, though it's needed for many vintage high-performance and sports cars. It's also ridiculously expensive; far out of line with what it would cost to produce it if it weren't so affected by diseconomies of scale.

Although alcohol has been envisioned for use as fuels as long ago as the 19th century, only after concerns of oil shortages in the 1970s did the idea of stretching fuel supplies with ethanol take center stage.

One thing that often gets forgotten in the ethanol mandate discussion is the importance of the Iowa caucuses' role in giving presidential candidates an early boost. In January of 1976, most people had barely heard of Jimmy Carter. However, since he was a farmer, he recognized the momentum he could gain by traveling all over Iowa, hitting every county with campaign stops in diners and school auditoriums. (Instant boost carrying him into the primaries!)

Now it seems that a whole lot of Senators and many House members fancy themselves as presidential timber. Look how many of them virtually camp out in the state of Iowa a year and a half before the presidential election! (While talking up their support of ethanol mandates, of course!)

Isn't this a ridiculously bad way to go about the selection of presidential candidates?

.
dilbert firestorm's Avatar
CM, its a peacock dance these politicians are using.

they are $$$ whores showing off how pretty they are...


with respect to Iowa being a Corny state, in 2016 Ted Cruz won the Iowa primary. He ran on ending ethanol requirement in gasoline. he was the only candidate to have this message.
HedonistForever's Avatar
And if Joe Biden were asked if he would give up Ethanol production if we were running short on food, the senile bastard would pick Ethanol.
Precious_b's Avatar
High fructose corn syrup turns my stomach.
Will have me hitting Walmart for the ethanol free pump for the small gas engines.
CM, its a peacock dance these politicians are using.

they are $$$ whores showing off how pretty they are...


with respect to Iowa being a Corny state, in 2016 Ted Cruz won the Iowa primary. He ran on ending ethanol requirement in gasoline. he was the only candidate to have this message. Originally Posted by dilbert firestorm
Yes, he sure did! I thought that was something of an anomaly, but maybe not.

As I recall, Cruz hit every county in the state (just like Jimmy Carter 40 years earlier), but his message was centered around appeal to the religious right. He got influential pastors all over the state to sing his praises, as the Christian right was not on board yet with Donald for understandable reasons.

Maybe some Iowan political activists are even more fanatic about turning the nation into a Christian theocracy than they are about transforming food into fuel!

.
the_real_Barleycorn's Avatar
Let us not forget that government is still paying people to not grow crops on their land.
texassapper's Avatar
And if Joe Biden were asked if he would give up Ethanol production if we were running short on food, the senile bastard would pick Ethanol. Originally Posted by HedonistForever
No... He'd more likely pick Elmo. That puppet is hilarious but who knew he was an alcoholic?