Gummint requires non-existent additive in gasoline

Liberals and Democrats love for da gummint to regulate everything. Which means lotsa government regulations. Conservatives think many regulations are either pointless or impose punitive penalties for harmless violations.

In other words, they end up raising prices to consumers. (Even liberals know that companies eventually need to recover the fines at some point.)

Some regs are the fault of agencies like the EPA, but some are actually specific requirements inserted into laws by corrupt congresswhores to benefit one company. So there's lots of blame to go around.

Back in 2005--which I cheerfully acknowledge was before the coronation of King Barack--the gummint (I don't know the specific branch or agency) invented a requirement that gasoline refiners blend into their gas a certain amount of a fuel called "cellulosic ethanol." The rule (or law) required that the amount of this stuff that refiners would be forced to add would rise with time: 500 million gallons this year, 3 billion in 2015 and 16 billion in 2022.

At an arbitrary two bucks a gallon, we're talking a really huge income stream for whoever was planning to sell the stuff. And remember, since its use is required by gummint, the income is guaranteed regardless of the price of the stuff.

One tiny problem: Cellulosic ethanol has never been produced on a commercial scale. That was true and known when the rule was published back in '05 and it's still true today. And the Congressional Research Service estimates that the stuff won't be available in the needed amounts "until at least 2015."

So...if the stuff doesn't exist in commercial amounts, a rational person would assume the rule or reg requiring it would contain a provision that would waive the requirement in such a case.

Hahahahahahaha! You haven't been in this country long, I see. Because the reg or law apparently has no such provision. And as a result, the gummint is reportedly levying the equivalent of a fine or penalty on refiners for failing to use half a billion gallons of a fuel additive that doesn't exist outside the lab.

And again, the refiners will eventually recover these penalties or fines in the form of higher gas prices at the pump. At which point liberals will be delighted, and most of the rest of the populace will be unaware that this stupid, stupid regulation is to blame for at least that part of the price increase.

With efficiency and logic like that shown in the cellulosic ethanol rule, I can hardly wait for the gummint to start managing my health care.