Corporate Criminals!

The 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act requires U.S. oil companies to include substances called cellulosic biofuels in their petroleum production. These are biological fuel substances made from things like corn cobs or wood chips, and the plan was that the increased use of cellulosic biofuels would decrease U.S. dependence on foreign oil and sidestep the problem of farmers selling their corn to be made into fuel rather than food.

According to the law, the amount of this kind of biofuel the companies are required to mix into their gasoline and diesel supplies is pretty small -- the goal for 2011 was 250 million gallons of biofuel mixed into the overall gasoline production of 135 billion gallons, or less than .002 percent. The actual required amount was even smaller -- just 6.6 million gallons for 2011 and only 8.65 million gallons for 2012. Or a percentage so small my calculator gives me an error message when I try to divide the 6.6 million by 135 billion in order to compute it.

And yet these arrogant oil companies, these corporate pirates, these one-percent big-business enviroment-destroying doo-doo heads wouldn't even do that little. Just 6.6 million gallons, an amount equal to how much gasoline the oil companies make just about every four and a half hours, and they wouldn't do it. Sure, the Environmental Protection Agency fined them, but it was just a paltry $6.8 million -- barely more than a dollar a gallon for what they didn't make and surely nowhere near what you and I pay at the pump for our gasoline. Is this all the EPA, our watchdog, our protector of the planet, our environmental conscience could do? Couldn't they fine the companies an amount that actually got to them, or stage surprise inspections and threaten shutdowns if the inspectors didn't find any cellulosic biofuels? This paltry little fine?

I'm sorry, what? Cellulosic biofuels don't actually exist yet? You mean that elected officials heard about something that sounded good and decided to tell people they had to do it even though technically there wasn't yet an "it" to do?

I guess that explains the warning letter the captain of the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Enterprise received from the EPA telling him that at least one quarter of the trips made on and off the ship during the next year had to be by transporter.