EPA defends controversial biofuels program at Senate hearing

Continuing a policy of mandating ethanol requirements that have yet to be met, the EPA doubles down in front of congress and reaffirms their RFS rules and continues to cater to the agriculture lobby.

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The U.S. environmental regulator on Thursday defended its handling of the nation's controversial renewable fuels program at a congressional hearing, the first since its new biofuels targets last month provoked a furor among corn farmers and oil refiners.

At the hearing by the Senate subcommittee on regulatory affairs and federal management, U.S. lawmakers criticized the agency for years-long delays to quotas and for last month setting unattainable targets for the amount of corn-based ethanol and other biofuels that must be used in the nation's motor fuel supply over the next two years.

They also questioned the future of the decade-old Renewable Fuels Standards (RFS), which critics say has inflated prices of food and fuel at the pump. (WASHINGTON | BY CHRIS PRENTICE)