Progressive: EPA fines energy companies for failing to produce magical biofuel that has yet to be invented

As if we needed additional proof that the EPA is completely out of control.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today denied the American Petroleum Institute s (API s) request to eliminate mandates for biofuels that do not exist, and the agency continues to fine refiners for not using them.

[The] EPA's mandate is out of touch with reality and forces refiners to pay a penalty for not using imaginary biofuels, said API Director of Downstream and Industry Operations Bob Greco. EPA's unrealistic mandate is effectively an added tax on making gasoline.

The Clean Air Act requires EPA to determine the mandated volume of cellulosic biofuels each year at the projected volume available. However, in 2011 EPA required refineries to use 6.6 million gallons of cellulosic biofuels even though, according to EPA s own records, none were commercially available. EPA today denied API's 2011 petition for reconsideration of the mandate and continues to mandate these nonexistent biofuels this year.

The fact that EPA continues to mandate these biofuels that do not exist is regulatory absurdity and bad public policy, Greco said.

API represents more than 500 oil and natural gas companies, leaders of a technology-driven industry that supplies most of America s energy, supports 9.2 million U.S. jobs and 7.7 percent of the U.S. economy, delivers more than $86 million a day in revenue to our government, and, since 2000, has invested more than $2 trillion in U.S. capital projects to advance all forms of energy, including alternatives.

The EPA is a collection of unelected, Statist bureaucrats dead set on de-industrializing America. As such, the agency needs to be completely de-funded and then rebuilt from scratch.