Why did House Republicans vote today to ban the Navy from using green fuel?
The rationale for barring the Navy from buying the 450,000 gallons of biofuels necessary for the experiment is economic: These fuels are too expensive—about four times more costly than conventional fuels.
To hammer home the point, the committee’s Republican leaders passed an amendment barring the entire Defense Department from using anyalternative fuels, for any purpose, if they’re more expensive than oil. But then, in a shameless disclosure of who’s paying the tiller, they tacked on a provision exempting coal and natural gas from this prohibition. As Noah Shachtman put it in Wired’s Danger Room blog, they “didn’t put limits on all alternative fuels—just the ones with environmental benefits.”
