The EPA article shows that the United States government and
its oil, auto and agro industry partners have collectively pushed forward
with an alternative fuel policy dominated by corn-based ethanol and biofuel
strategies. Specifically, according to the Environmental Protection
Agency, "the Renewable Fuel Standard program will increase the volume of
renewable fuel required to be blended into gasoline to 7.5 billion gallons
by 2012. The RFS program was developed in collaboration with refiners,
renewable fuel producers, and many other stakeholders." (EPA 2008, p. 1)
This passage is a revealing one which demonstrates that under the
existing policy and for at least the coming three years, the United States
will balk at making real overtures toward the movement away from fossil
fuels. The goals projected here...
And even
with a policy favoring the 'blending' of renewable fuel sources, the
insistence upon biofuel methods which have been scientifically and
economically scrutinized to a negative outcome reveals an EPA that is
delayed in creating a meaningful alternative fuel policy. Paraphrasing the
passage above cannot be done without some level of interpretive insight.
And in conducting this insight, one can see that the EPA is as much
beholden to industry and politicization as to an interest in the challenges
presented to the environment. This stands as one of the primary reasons
that a widely criticized mode of alternative fuel source continues to
occupy a central place in America's future fuel policy.
