US Biofuels Policy — An Introduction and Overview

Abstract

Whilst all three drivers of biofuels policy identified in the previous chapters are present at different times and in different combinations in the US case, the particular influence of energy security considerations makes US biofuels policy distinctive. Of the three drivers, energy security has been the most enduring in the discourse and outcomes of US biofuels policy. The origins of current policy can be traced to the oil price shocks of the 1970s that revealed the macroeconomic vulnerability of the US resulting from its dependence on imported oil. Whilst sensitivity to the economic and national security consequences of importing significant shares of US total energy consumption diminished somewhat in policy-making calculations in the following decades, the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001 and — in particular — the Iraq war from 2003 set a context for energy security concerns to be a central influence in the significant US biofuel policy reforms of the last decade. These reforms established the backbone of goals, instruments and settings in current US biofuels policy.KeywordsEnvironmental Protection AgencyPolicy InstrumentMethyl Tertiary Butyl EtherEnergy SecurityCellulosic EthanolThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.