Opinion: Scrap the Renewable Fuel Standard

by Andrew Quinlan (Center for Freedom and Prosperity/Washington Examiner) Plummeting demand due to reduced travel during the COVID-19 pandemic compounded the many flaws with the Renewable Fuel Standard and strained some in the petroleum industry to the breaking point.

The RFS has not brought promised environmental benefits. A large part of the reason is that advanced biofuel development failed to meet the pace anticipated by the law’s drafters, which should come as no surprise to those who understand that politicians are not blessed with special market insight.

Instead of transitioning out of corn starch ethanol, the ever-increasing amount of biofuel that the RFS mandates be blended into the nation’s fuel supply has necessitated rapid expansion of corn production. The result is negative consequences for both consumers, in the form of higher prices for corn and corn-fed livestock, and the environment, as corn production is a significant cause of air and water pollution.

Increases in the biofuel mandate from the RFS have left small U.S. refineries in a precarious position.

In a comment to the Environmental Protection Agency, the ethanol association Growth Energy claims that “demand for E10 exists entirely independent of the RFS standards,” and “most consumption of higher-blend ethanol-based fuels is dictated by non-RFS government mandates and incentives.”

The reality is that the problems with the RFS largely flow from its overly prescriptive nature. Instead of simply setting, as one example, a limit to the amount of pollution a vehicle emits or the total life-cycle emissions for a fuel, and then allowing the market to innovate and find the best solutions to the problem, politicians thought they could predict technological development such that they could dictate to the market the best approach. READ MORE