We do not expect much to come from our Republican Congress regarding this report of an Obama agency thumbing its nose at the law.
You can read the story here. The link is to virtually the same article at the Chicago Tribune, although not headlined there. The Argus-Dispatch seems to lag in archiving its print stories in its search engine (the E-edition shown here was not archived as yet by subject or title) Excerpting the AP story elsewhere we see:
The Obama administration has failed to study as legally required the impact of requiring ethanol in gasoline and ensuring that new regulations intended to address one problem do not actually make other problems worse, the Environmental Protection Agency inspector general said Thursday.
The conclusion in the new audit confirmed findings of an Associated Press investigation in November 2013. The AP said the administration never conducted studies to determine whether air and water quality benefits from adding corn-based ethanol to gasoline. Such reports to Congress were required every three years under the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007.
Congress is made up largely of Democrat toadies (100%) , Republicans in name only, and a gaggle of big talkers but little doers. It is largely an irresponsible lot or more dedicated to implanting themselves with as much time at the public trough as they can. Neither the bureaucracy or what comprises the congressional establishment has respect for the governing institutions they are part of or the American people’s right to know. All homage to the separation of powers are subterfuge or selective. The much smaller percentage that does respect the Constitution, and truth, face formidable resistance to performing or calling agencies to task. The level of corruption and indifference is too high.
An entrenched bureaucracy’s contempt for Congress, slow walking matters it is tasked to do by law when it deems it useful to ignore the law, is nothing new in the Obama administration. The AP’s expose of it is, as is the Argus -Dispatch willingness to headline it. That the AP continues to have a thing about corn ethanol’s environmental effects even greater than their impulse to cover for Obama is also remarkable. That the matter became the front page headline story at the Dispatch/ Argus is as well.
The referenced AP story within the AP story provided a lot of reasons why corn-based ethanol production has more environmental detriments than benefits. We highlighted the information at the time, here and here,* and it is a recurring theme of ours. The EPA seems reluctant to confirm those effects. We suspect Big green enviro-money talks, and it is a bi-partisan multi-institutional lot of them. It could be that key members of Congress do not want an updated report, a sop to objective anti-ethanol-boondoggle congressman anyway, unless a favorable spin (to ethanol) can be had.
The EPA may be conflicted as there is a growing concern by objective environmentalists that the case for corn ethanol is weak or negative for the environment. But then Big ethanol funds a lot of influential environmental lobbies, to protect its subsidized- through -mandates gravy train. To use a sort of Trumpism . . . very incestuous, very incestuous.
The publication The Hill has more on the matter: Watchdog dings EPA on ethanol impacts (excerpt below). The Hill article does not let the EPA response ~~ that there is nothing new to report ~~ go unanswered. It reports the Inspector General’s response and other critics:
The EPA told auditors it has not completed another report because “the state of science has not changed enough with respect to lifecycle GHG [greenhouse gas] emissions to warrant revisiting its prior GHG determinations for the 2010 fuel sources,” referring to the year covered by that one completed report.
The OIG said that the EPA should at least have a method for determining whether another report on environmental effects is necessary.
In responding to the report, EPA regulators told the OIG that they would complete another review by 2017. But an air quality report and recommendations couldn’t be completed until 2024 at the earliest, the agency predicted.
“EPA is committed to successfully implementing the [renewable fuel standard] program and we take our statutory obligations seriously,” said EPA spokeswoman Melissa Harrison.
The American Council for Capital Formation, a business group that opposes the ethanol mandate, accused the EPA of trying to ignore the impacts of biofuels.
“By failing to conduct analysis as required by law, EPA has simply tried to ignore the overwhelming evidence of the harmful impacts of corn ethanol on the environment,” said George David Banks, the group’s executive vice president.
Thumbing its nose at institutional Congressional authority, poor administration that purposefully did not allocate within the department for its lawful duty, and of course engaging in all matter of funding boondoggles or malfeasance elsewhere — that is the Obama EPA.
R Mall
- Don’t ask us why links go bad, the original link in our 11/11/13 article referencing the Argus -Dispatch does not work. We think we found the same article here. http://www.businessinsider.com/the-secret-dirty-cost-of-obamas-green-power-push-2013-11
