California

Now that the EPA has stopped holding them back, California is charging forward on the issue of reducing CO2 emissions from fuels. Led in the charge by their burly Governor and with well over 10% of the country's population along for the ride, this should be interesting to watch. The regulation in question forces reductions in the mix of fuels consumed state-wide. It penalizes American corn-based ethanol by requiring accounting of "indirect effects" such as bringing more land under cultivation. While a complete accounting requires taking that into account, I have to agree with ethanol backers that the standard doesn't seem to be fairly applied to all sources. Personally, I'm not too sad to see corn-based ethanol take a hit, but it sounds like the policy needs to be better defined.