A recent headline atop a New York Times article drew attention. It read, "A Fine for Not Using a Biofuel That Doesn't Exist."
"When the companies that supply motor fuel close the books on 2011, they will pay about $6.8 million in penalties to the Treasury because they failed to mix a special type of biofuel into their gasoline and diesel as required by law," the reporter wrote. "But there was none to be had. Outside a handful of laboratories and workshops, the ingredient, cellulosic biofuel, does not exist."
Under federal regulations, oil companies were supposed to blend nearly 7 million gallons of cellulosic biofuel -- made of corncobs, wood chips and such -- into gasoline and diesel, as a way to fight "global warming." The requirement gets stricter still in 2012: Companies will be required to blend almost 9 million gallons of cellulosic biofuel into gas and diesel.
So Washington has ordered the companies to make use of a biofuel that they cannot obtain in anything close to the amounts required -- and it is punishing them when they fail to do the impossible.
Is it any wonder so many Americans are deeply cynical toward the federal government?