by
Sneakers55
Mar 31, 2013
Executive branch agencies don't legislate. They only implement. EPA wouldn't be so gung-ho for ethanol had Congress and Bush not passed a law. There are technical reasons for oxygenates in gasoline. The technically superior MTBE is no longer used in the USA because it tends to contaminate water and ethanol does not. It's a bad time to build refineries and it has been for decades because refining is usually a very low profit margin business. For various reasons, the refiners can add on to an existing refinery a lot easier than they can build a completely new one. And now, they are anticipating that average fuel economy will only go up (no matter who the President is). If we throw out the current set of bums for a new set of bums who think it's Americans' God-given right to drive gas guzzlers, most of the oil companies have refinery expansion plans already designed and ready to go if demand goes back. Most of the expansion was put on hold after Bush signed his 2005 energy bill.