Valentine’s Day video pokes fun at oil industry
Source: Amanda Peterka, E&E reporter • Posted: Thursday, February 14, 2013
A coalition of biofuel supporters yesterday handed the oil industry a heavy dose of sarcasm for Valentine’s Day.
In a Web video posted in the afternoon, the group Fuels America portrays men, women, kids and even polar bears expressing an undying love for petroleum. The video begins with a smooching sound and ends with a woman wishing for the country to be “stuck on oil forever, and ever, and ever.”
“I love what this oil does to my feathers — they’re so shiny,” an oil-drenched bird says at one point in the video.
“Oil companies … I f—ng love you,” a polar bear later proclaims.
In a statement, Fuels America said the cheeky video is meant to “end America’s love affair with this finite and expensive fuel source that has led to higher gas prices, and climate change-inducing weather that makes us the wrong kind of hot.”
The video comes amid an aggressive effort by the group — a coalition of biofuels, agriculture and national security interests — to maintain the renewable fuel standard, which sets yearly targets for ethanol and advanced biofuel production. Oil trade groups, food producers, carmakers and environmentalists are all pushing for either reform or repeal of the standard this year.
The first of many congressional bills targeting the standard started to filter in last week, beginning with legislation aimed at reducing U.S. EPA’s targets for biofuel made from plant-based materials (E&ENews PM, Feb. 7). Legislation targeting EPA’s approval of an expanded level of ethanol in gasoline is expected later this week (see related story).
Just hours before the video was released yesterday, Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), a vocal foe of ethanol, jumped into the debate, announcing that he had sent a letter to EPA demanding that the agency explain its 2013 requirement for cellulosic biofuel.
The number, Sensenbrenner said, defies a federal court’s recent ruling that the agency’s calculations were not accurate enough and overestimated the amount of the fuel that would be available last year.
“EPA doubled down on a runaway political agenda to impose unrealistic RFS standards,” Sensenbrenner wrote. “The agency has been mandating that refiners buy a commercially unavailable fuel and then fining them for not using it. These fines get passed on to consumers with higher prices at the pump. EPA needs to explain how the absurd 2013 projection is reasonable and within the agency’s authority.”