Another Way to Define Madness

God bless the EPA. In an age when Republican candidates are competing on how badly they will dismember the EPA, certain news stories sure do not help the cause.

Take this story. In 2007, the EPA enacted a regulation that manufacturers of motor fuel must add a specific biofuel into their mixtures (gasoline and diesel) made out of cellulose by 2012.

Failure to do so would result in severe fines.

It is now 2012, and every single manufacturer is being fined; so far, almost $7 million in fines have been levied against them by the EPA.

So why aren’t the gasoline producers using the additive? Because it doesn’t exist. No one knows how to make it. It may not be possible.

The EPA is still fining the companies anyway, defending their actions by saying they could be fining them even worse as allowed by the regulation. It ain’t the EPA’s fault that no one figured out what this stuff is. Is it?