AP Whitewashes EPA's Defiance of Federal Court Ruling on Ethanol Mandate

Let's see. Last week, USA Today reported that "A federal court delivered a defeat to the biofuels industry Friday, ruling the U.S. government exceeded its authority by requiring refiners to purchase cellulosic biofuel despite the fact the next-generation fuel is not commercially available."

Specifically, the court ruled, in Hebert's words that "the Environmental Protection Agency had 'the authority to set a standard' for cleaner gasoline under the 1990 Clean Air Act, (but that) it could not 'mandate the manner of compliance or the precise formula' for the fuel."

Today, Matthew Daly at AP reported that the EPA in 2013 will "require production of 14 million gallons of so-called cellulosic biofuels made from grasses and woody material." In other words, EPA, in defiance of a federal court order will continue to mandate how these fuels will be produced. Daly, of course, didn't characterize what EPA did as direct defiance. Here are several paragraphs from Daly's whitewash:

DESPITE COURT RULING, EPA RAISES BIOFUEL ESTIMATE

Days after a federal appeals court said the Obama administration is setting overly optimistic production quotas for the struggling biofuels industry, the government issued new standards Thursday that raise production estimates for 2013.

New standards announced by the Environmental Protection Agency require production of 14 million gallons of so-called cellulosic biofuels made from grasses and woody material. That's up from an 8.7 million-gallon requirement in 2012 - when actual production was near zero. An oil industry representative said the Obama administration was thumbing its nose at a ruling last week by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

That last sentence is a prime example of a shameful and maddenning media habit: Make something which is an obvious truth look merely like someone's opinion.

Continuing:

"The court recognized the absurdity of fining companies for failing to use a nonexistent biofuel," said Bob Greco, director of downstream operations for the American Petroleum Institute, the principal lobbying group for the oil and gas industry.

Greco said he was astonished that EPA would nearly double the mandate for biofuel in 2013. "EPA needs a serious reality check," he said, calling the mandate a "stealth tax on gasoline" and an "egregious example of bad public policy."

EPA spokeswoman Julia Valentine said the agency believes the proposed standards "are a reasonable representation of expected production" of biofuels this year.

There was a time when leftists called themselves the "reality-based community." They never were, and now that they're in power, they're indulging in fantasies, even the courts order them to stop. Media lapdogs like Matt Daly, by waving their childish and lawless behavior through, serve as enabler -- something they would never do for a conservative or Republican administration.

Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.