After Buying Refinery, Delta Joins In Fight Against Renewable Fuel Standards

[hatrack]

WASHINGTON — When Delta Air Lines bought a Philadelphia refinery last year, it hoped to save on jet fuel.

But the acquisition came with a whole lot more baggage, putting the airline and its new refining subsidiary, Monroe Energy, on the hook to comply with federal mandates to blend more renewable fuel into the nation’s gasoline supply.

Through Monroe, Delta is now fighting the renewable fuel quotas the Obama administration’s Environmental Protection Agency established for 2013, saying in legal filings that it is “powerless” to comply with the mandates.

Biofuel boosters say that’s a situation of Delta’s own making. At issue is the 8-year-old renewable fuel standard that forces U.S. refiners to incorporate an annually increasing amount of biofuels into the nation’s diesel and gasoline supply, up to 36 billion gallons by 2022. Monroe Energy’s challenge of the Environmental Protection Agency’s specific quotas for 2013 before the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals could help dictate the agency’s handling of the mandate and spur lawmakers to make bigger changes.

EDIT

http://fuelfix.com/blog/2013/12/27/delta-air-lines-joins-fight-against-renewable-fuels-standards/

[Laelth]

1. Lovely (sarcasm). k&r for exposure. n/t

-Laelth