President Biden geeft als noodgreep tegen de algemene weerzin tegen de hoge prijzen aan de pomp nu toestemming voor het bijmengen van ethanol. Maar ook tegen biodiesel bestaan vele bezwaren.

En dat tot een percentage dat normaal alleen in de winter wordt toegestaan. Het gevolg is dan ook razernij bij milieuactivisten:

In his latest attempt to ease the relentless pain at the pump, President Biden has pulled off something remarkable. He’s managed to infuriate climate activists and the oil and gas industry, all while jacking up demand for America’s most vital agricultural commodity: corn.
The president is set to announce Tuesday during a visit to an ethanol plant in a remote town in Iowa that the EPA will eliminate restrictions on high-ethanol-content gasoline to be sold during the summer months. The decision hasn’t yet been confirmed, but senior administration sources have leaked the news to WSJ and a handful of other media outlets.

Die ethanol wordt gestookt van mais, en de staat met de hoogste maisproductie (Iowa) heeft dan ook de vlag uitgestoken.

Administration officials say the decision could shave as much as 10 cents off the price of a gallon of gasoline (which is roughly the same impact they had estimated for Biden’s latest SPR release, although the investment banks immediately projected that it would likely send oil prices higher, not lower). 
Iowa’s two Republican senators, Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst, immediately celebrated the news on Twitter (since their state, being the country’s largest producer of corn, stands to see the biggest benefit from the Administration’s policy).

Of het goed nieuws betekent voor de Amerikaanse automobilist staat echter nog ter discussie – dat wordt afwachten:

Of course, since corn prices have been rising right alongside oil, whether this will actually have any impact on the price of gasoline is unclear. Energy industry officials have instead pushed Biden to combat higher prices by encouraging more investment in oil and gas infrastructure, something the administration has so far been unwilling to do.

Afijn, president Biden bewijst keer op keer weinig goed te kunnen doen.