1234 - 2/5/2016 18:04

Ethanol Insider, Sat and everybody else who argues that we should just sit by and let the RFS go:

This whole discussion is absolutely ridiculous and absurd. Why, I'll tell you why. Since 1916, for a hundred years the oil industry has had net positive money transfers from the Federal and State government to their bank accounts. Not just tax exemption and favorable depreciations not available to you or I, but actual money transfers above costs. And it's not just little dab. A substantial portion of the national debt can be attributed to the pliferage of one of the most lucrative businesses in the history of the world, the petroleum industry.
This whole argument that because you have a mandate it is somehow unfair is just stupid on its face. It is an argument being put up by people who quite literally have a licence to steal given to them by Congress.
The idea that you will willing give up a mandate that sunsets in 2022, just six years and give the competitive advantage to an industry that has had billions if not trillions in actual subsidies for going on a hundred years strikes me as lunacy.

By the way, you do understand that a "depletion allowance" is not an exemption or deduction but a different animal completely. It is an "entitlement" with a different name.