Magloughlin: Proof that the Renewable Fuel Standard Is Corporate Welfare

President Trump’s economic boom is repairing forgotten America. Deregulation and tax reform are spawning jobs and wages for the middle class.

But beneath good news, swamp creatures still swindle working America with Wall Street scams. We call these scams the “Renewable Fuel Standard” (RFS).

The Trump administration has dutifully drained parts of the swamp, but there’s work to be done with the RFS. And it needs to happen fast.

This week, Philadelphia Energy Solutions, the largest refinery on the East Coast (where relatively few refineries operate), filed for bankruptcy as it owes the EPA $100 million in overdue RINS credits. If the company goes under, 1,100 jobs will be lost and thousands more are at risk elsewhere at refineries struggling to comply with the RFS.

The RFS is a Wall Street subsidy masquerading as clean energy. It’s a disastrous provision of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, a bipartisan attempt to lower gasoline consumption. This Bush-Pelosi monstrosity forces oil refineries to blend 15 billion gallons of biofuels, mainly ethanol, into annual gasoline production. President Obama’s activist Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) heightened this requirement.

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