Inspector General Confirms EPA Broke Law, Failed to Study Environmental Impact of Ethanol

Ronnie Schreiber
by Ronnie Schreiber

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s inspector general, the Obama Administration has failed to live up to its legal obligation to study the environmental impact of blending ethanol with gasoline.

Those findings, the result of an inspector general audit, confirm what the Associated Press reported back in late 2013, prompting the audit.

In 2007, Congress passed the Energy Independence and Security Act, which was and signed into law by Pres. George W. Bush. Among other things, the 2007 legislation increased the Renewable Fuel Standard that mandated biofuel production, primarily ethanol, and the blending of at least some of that ethanol into the gasoline supply.

The law also stipulates that the U.S. EPA must conduct studies every three years and report to Congress on the air and water quality benefit, or lack thereof, by adding corn-based ethanol to gasoline. The purpose of that part of the law is to make sure solutions to the country’s energy needs don’t adversely affect the environment.

The 2013 AP investigation characterized the use of ethanol as having a far more negative impact on the environment than the EPA and Dept. of Energy predicted. The AP reported that with corn effectively subsidized, farmers put millions of acres of land formerly devoted to conservation into corn production, destroying animal habitats and polluting water supplies.

For its part, the EPA agreed with the IG that the agency failed to follow the law and produce the studies. The EPA said it will produce a report on the impacts of biofuels by the end of 2017 — seven years late.

Though it’s now complying with that part of the law, apparently the agency feels the triennial requirements in the law are still optional. The EPA said that it will investigate whether the ethanol mandate is making other environmental issues worse, but it will do so by September 2024. The reason that study will take another eight years, the agency claims, is that it will be time-consuming and resource-intensive.

The excuse the EPA gave the inspector general for its breaking of the law: it indeed produced one report for Congress on the effects of ethanol on the environment in December 2011, but ran out of money for future reports.

That study cost $1.7 million. The EPA has an annual budget of $8.2 billion.

The EPA shifted additional blame to Congress, saying that it never received any feedback from legislators on that first report. Essentially ignoring the 2007 law that mandates the studies every three years, the agency further asserted that three years was too short of an interval for any significant scientific advances to take place in the meantime.

Ronnie Schreiber
Ronnie Schreiber

Ronnie Schreiber edits Cars In Depth, the original 3D car site.

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  • Jimbob457 Jimbob457 on Aug 22, 2016

    Heavens to grandma. Ethanol made some sense when imported oil cost $100 per barrel or more. Gasoline cost $4.00 per gallon more or less. Now, with fracking, oil is at most $70 per barrel and probably much less over the long term. Ethanol no longer makes any sense at all in the USA.

  • HotPotato HotPotato on Aug 23, 2016

    EPA's mistake was being honest: "we just DID a study a couple of years ago, nobody read the damn thing, the facts haven't changed much since we did that one, and there's a snowball's chance in hell the policy's gonna change regardless of what we find." They should have just put a new date on the old study and re-submitted it. Maybe thrown in a literature review of any more-recent publications. Somewhere between the oil lobby's public-relations jihad against ethanol, and the farm lobby's corny campaign for it, lies truth. Jamie Kitman's recent piece on ethanol in Automobile is a welcome relief from the tsunami of BS on this subject. Here 'tis: http://www.automobilemag.com/news/war-against-ethanol-part-1/

  • Dave Holzman A design award for the Prius?!!! Yes, the Prius is a great looking car, but the visibility is terrible from what I've read, notably Consumer Reports. Bad visibility is a dangerous, and very annoying design flaw.
  • Wjtinfwb I've owned multiple Mustang's, none perfect, all an absolute riot. My '85 GT with a big Holley 4 barrel and factory tube header manifolds was a screaming deal in its day and loved to rev. I replaced it with an '88 5.0 Convertible and added a Supercharger. Speed for days, handling... present. Brakes, ummm. But I couldn't kill it and it embarrassed a lot of much more expensive machinery. A '13 Boss 302 in Gotta Have It Green was a subtle as a sledgehammer, open up the exhaust cut outs and every day was Days of Thunder. I miss them all. They've gotten too expensive and too plush, I think, wish they'd go back to a LX version, ditch all the digital crap, cloth interior and just the Handling package as an add on. Keep it under 40k and give todays kids an alternative to a Civic or WRX.
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  • 1995 SC At least you can still get one. There isn't much for Ford folks to be happy about nowadays, but the existence of the Mustang and the fact that the lessons from back in the 90s when Ford tried to kill it and replace it with the then flavor of the day seem to have been learned (the only lessons they seem to remember) are a win not only for Ford folks but for car people in general. One day my Super Coupe will pop its headgaskets (I know it will...I read it on the Internet). I hope I will still be physically up to dropping the supercharged Terminator Cobra motor into it. in all seriousness, The Mustang is a.win for car guys.
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