Bandage For Economy: Biden Cuts Regulation
Bandage For Economy: Biden Cuts Regulation-President Joe Biden’s policies have created a whirlwind of economic disaster for the United States, and recent decisions that are negatively impacting energy production have forced his administration to suspend federal environmental protections in an attempt to alleviate the repercussions for Americans.
On Tuesday, the president announced that his administration will extend the use of E15 gasoline into the summer months, promising to reduce some of the cost hardships that drivers are currently experiencing. Despite the fact that overspending and policies aimed at stopping climate change are the source of the problem, the president continues to spend at historic rates and is now pulling back climate-related regulations.
Bandage For Economy: Biden Cuts Regulation
Today, I am announcing that the Environmental Protection Agency is planning to issue an emergency waiver to allow E15 gasoline — gasoline that uses more ethanol from home-grown crops — to be sold across the U.S. this summer in order to increase fuel supply and lower prices.
— President Biden (@POTUS) April 12, 2022
E15 is made up of 85% gasoline blended with 15% ethanol. E10, which is what is commonly used, is gasoline with 10% ethanol blend.
On February 11, a federal judge in Louisiana ruled against the Biden administration’s attempt to implement an increase in the carbon emissions cost estimate related to fuel production. The states’ attorneys general fighting the move argued that energy costs could increase as a result of these actions. And the judge agreed.
As a result of the ruling — which blocked the administration from reducing energy production by increasing its estimated “social cost”, Biden decided to vindictively halt new decisions on energy-producing actions on federal lands, thereby halting new production just before banning imports of Russian energy.
Energy prices had already been rising. And opening up domestic energy production then would have offered a reprieve for those bearing the costs by increasing supply. However, environmental concerns prompted the Biden administration to enact these punitive policy changes.
A spokeswoman for the Department of the Interior, Melissa Schwartz, commented on the ruling and Biden’s decision, stating that her agency “is committed to ensuring its programs account for climate impacts.” And in the administration’s play to force damaging new regulation standards, they have hurt supply and given citizens no reprieve from foolish and dangerous policy decisions.
But the strategy seems to be to offload all of the blame for the administration’s failures onto the conflict in Ukraine, which didn’t lead to a ban on Russian energy until last month.
EPA Administrator Michael Regan blatantly misled a Senate committee last week, implying that prices, which have been rising long before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, are related to “pain that we’ve seen since Russia launched this war against Ukraine.”
Russia, however, is not responsible for the rising costs at the grocery store that have been a growing concern going back much further than their invasion.
Legal challenges to our climate-defending president’s decision have been proposed, claiming that selling E15 throughout the year is a violation of the U.S. Clean Air Act.
Opponents assert that the production of ethanol erodes the soil, increases the cost of food and contributes to climate change.
An increase in the cost of food, during a fertilizer shortage and with already increasing prices across the board, is a serious concern. And the entire stated purpose of these policies that have drastically reduced domestic energy production — the straightforward answer to the problem — was the protection of our climate.
So, this latest maneuver by the administration seems like it will not only be ineffective, but counterproductive to their stated intentions.
In a recently released article from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), the authors explain that:
We find that the RFS increased corn prices by 30% and the prices of other crops by 20%, which, in turn, expanded US corn cultivation by 2.8 Mha (8.7%) and total cropland by 2.1 Mha (2.4%) in the years following policy enactment (2008 to 2016). These changes increased annual nationwide fertilizer use by 3 to 8%, increased water quality degradants by 3 to 5%, and caused enough domestic land use change emissions such that the carbon intensity of corn ethanol produced under the RFS is no less than gasoline and likely at least 24% higher. These tradeoffs must be weighed alongside the benefits of biofuels as decision-makers consider the future of renewable energy policies and the potential for fuels like corn ethanol to meet climate mitigation goals.
E15 is generally around 10 cents per gallon less expensive than E10, and doesn’t improve gas mileage. So, this is going to be a drop in the ocean when it comes to helping Americans weather Biden’s storm.
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