"The Environmental Protection Agency
quietly announced on Friday that, after much delay, it had been unable
to decide this year on a rule setting levels for the amount of biofuel
it would require to be blended into conventional vehicle fuels.
Because
of the delay, a spokeswoman said in a statement, the agency will not take up the rule, known as the Renewable Fuel Standard,, until next year,
when it seeks to set levels for 2015 and 2016.
A notice posted on the E.P.A. website said that the agency’s proposal, released last year, to reduce biofuel targets
had “generated significant comment and controversy,” especially over
how the biofuel targets should be set and whether it would be effective
in, “achieving the volumes of renewable fuel targeted by the statute.”
Given continued consideration of those issues, the notice said, the
agency would not reach a decision this year.
The notice also said the agency would adjust reporting requirements so refiners could comply retroactively. The decision not to decide is the latest setback in a long line of economic, legal
and logistical hurdles the agency has faced since it started requiring
increasing levels of ethanol to be incorporated into vehicle fuel under
energy laws passed in 2005 and 2007. Much has changed since then, when
American dependence on foreign oil was high, and so were prices.
Now,
however, the country is awash in domestic oil from shale drilling,
while more efficient cars and an anemic economy have cut demand. The
market is saturated with regular corn ethanol, while production of
cellulosic, or so-called advanced, biofuel — made from nonfood parts of
corn plants or other biomass like wood waste — has fallen short of what
the mandate requires refiners to use.
“A
lot of the motivation for biofuels is gone,” said Michael E. Webber,
deputy director of the Energy Institute at the University of Texas at
Austin. “I think this delay is not just a stall tactic. I think the
E.P.A. really doesn’t know what to do. They need to kind of give it
another year to figure out, ‘Well does this biofuels policy make sense
anymore?’”
On
Friday, supporters and opponents of increased biofuel production
expressed a rare consensus that the E.P.A.’s move was a punt and that the rule needed to be fixed, whether they were in favor of revision or
repeal.
Michael
McAdams, president of the Advanced Biofuels Association, a trade group,
said, “We’re still in suspended animation, and the uncertainty is just
kicked down the road.”
Jeff
Lautt, the chief executive of Poet, a corn ethanol producer that
recently opened a cellulosic plant, said through a spokesman that the
company was “pleased the administration did not finalize the flawed
proposed rule” but was unsure if officials would avoid provisions that
could stifle advanced biofuel development going forward.
Others said that this latest wrinkle was a clear signal that Congress should revisit the law.
“It’s
not a good signal that they can’t get this done,” said Mike Lavender, a
policy analyst at the Environmental Working Group, an advocacy
organization that is in favor of biofuels but is critical of corn
ethanol. “The only real option at this point is in 2015 for Congress to
take up the reins and take a serious look at reform.”"
Page B2 of NY edition, 11/22/14
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