Sorry This was just to good to pass up.



Federal LUST tax and biofuels
Posted Aug 17th 2006 at 4:04PM by Sebastian Blanco
Filed under: Biodiesel, Etc., Ethanol
It sounds like some kind of kinky fantasy government plan, but there really
is a Lust Tax in this country. The Lust money is actually part of the
Leaking Underground Storage Tank (LUST) Trust Fund, and each time many of
us gas up, we pay into the fund. The Fund was set up in 1986 and is
financed by a 0.1 cent tax on each gallon of motor fuel sold nationwide,
according to the EPA. Except it's not, as a member of the San Francisco
Biofuels group recently discovered when driving through Arizona. During one
fill-up (at Western States Petroleum in Phoenix), the driver bought
biodiesel and saved about $20 on a $42 bill because of two discounts for
the "Federal L.U.S.T. tax" and a "Agri-Biodsl Price
Inscentiv". The driver claims each discount saved $10.40, which is far
more than the EPA's 0.1 cent a gallon. However this driver received the
discount, it prompted me to look into this LUST tax a little bit and see
how it relates to biofuels.

The LUST Fund is supposed to pay to clean up leaking underground gasoline
storage tanks when a responsible party cannot be found, and it is used to
enforce the laws when one can be found. But it seems more money is going in
to the Fund than is being taken out to pay for clean up and a lot of people
aren't happy with the LUST tax. The Society of Independent Gasoline
Marketers of America, for example, is adamantly opposed to the way the LUST
Trust Fund has been applied in recent years. They claim the fund has got
about $2.3 billion in the bank, and $200 million are added each year. On
top of this, only about $75 million is taken out annually for cleaning up
messes across the country. Sites around the country need to be cleaned up
because the petroleum in the tanks is leaking into the groundwater. Since
biofuels contain less petroleum (or none) than standard fuels, anecdotal
evidence from the drive through Arizona implies that biofuels are not
subject to the LUST tax. I have not been able to confirm or deny this, but
will do a little more research for a future post. Anyone out there have any
knowledge on this topic?

[Source: SF Biofuels, EPA, NPN]

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