You WILL care about your heart. For your own good we propose an M-10 or M-15 mandate for all cooking.
Now we admire Chuck Grassley for much, but we have no illusion that he wouldn’t find a reason to support Mazola mandates, temporarily of course, in order to prevent heart disease even though it doesn’t. It would have nothing to do with corn of course. His would be of the same unadulterated rationale as ethanol mandates to prevent global warming, which it doesn’t because there isn’t any. As regards Rand Paul, well, read the excerpts from the Grassley press release below regarding their joint sponsorship of the Fuel Choice and Deregulation Act of 2015 and you may or may not have the same suspicions as we did.
Fuel Choice and Deregulation Act of 2015 Introduced
Mar 31, 2015
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senators Rand Paul (R-KY) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) last week introduced the Fuel Choice and Deregulation Act of 2015. This legislation will remove Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) impediments to market competition and innovation in America’s transportation fuel market.
“The EPA’s onerous regulation of fuels is artificially limiting options for consumers and producers and preventing the adoption of new fuel options that could benefit our environment, our economy, and our energy security. Through competition and consumer choice, my bill will free fuel producers and automobile manufacturers to innovate and bring new products to market that can lower costs to consumers, increase domestic energy production, and benefit the environment.” Sen. Paul said.
“Consumers appreciate having choices, whether it’s at the grocery store or the fuel pump,” Sen. Grassley said. “Those of us who live in biofuels-producing states like Iowa understand the appeal of cleaner, domestic, renewable fuels. The EPA should be consistent in the way it treats different fuel blends as a matter of fairness and to give consumers more options for fueling their vehicles. The EPA has never acted on its authority to grant a waiver for E15. This bill proposes a legislative fix to fill the void.”
Supporters of the Fuel Choice and Deregulation Act of 2015 include: the Renewable Fuels Association (RFA), Growth Energy, Commonwealth Agri-Energy, and the U.S. Energy Security Council.
“Securing parity with respect to fuel volatility regulation for E10 and E15 is critical to the expansion of E15 in the marketplace. The RFA believes EPA has the regulatory authority to do that without new legislation. But legislation compelling Agency action such as Senator Paul’s Fuel Choice and Deregulation Act underscores the need to achieve parity by any means necessary, and we applaud and support his effort. Without it, refiners will continue to deny gasoline marketers the specially tailored blendstocks they would need to sell E15 in the summer months. At the end of the day, however, the most important means of assuring fuel choice for consumers would be the successful implementation of the RFS as intended by a bipartisan Congress in 2007,” said Bob Dinneen, President and CEO of Renewable Fuels Association.
Now we have no truck with the Obama administration’s running of the EPA. Their policies are often wrong, reprehensible, high-handed, unconstitutional, even corrupt. But environmentalists are divided and various reports indicate they are turning against corn-based ethanol, the main source of so-called renewable fuels, as ecologically unsound (see our energy and climate category at right). Of course they don’t like carbon fueled engines period and love to increase costs for them. Together those matters would explain any regulatory impediments or bureaucratic foot-dragging by the Obama administration’s EPA.
No offense Senators Grassley and Paul, but who believes the purpose of your law is not in service to Big Ethanol and Iowa politics . . . that it is not more about removing any impediments to large-scale E15 for no good reason? How about offering something that substantially curtails the EPA and their regulatory writing powers, and is not so parochial at best.
R Mall
