ALTERNATIVE FUELS * Canada - CTA to Feds on biodiesel: "Fail"

The Canadian Trucking Alliance, calls the mandate a "fuel tax increase"

Ottawa,ONT,CAN -Today's Trucking -5 April 2011: -- Now, as fuel prices soar through the ozone layer, is not the time to make Canadian truckers buy biodiesel... Think fuel prices are high now? Just Wait until July 1st when the national two-percent (B2) biodiesel requirement kicks-in... It’s only going to make everything more expensive and research shows it won’t help the environment, says the CTA ... In a prepared statement, CTA President David Bradley says mandating the biodiesel will not only drive up prices for truckers and thus consumers, it might end up fouling truck engines. In other words, it’s going to cost... According to the Federal Government’s own research, the feds have doled out over $2 billion in subsidies to the renewable-fuels industry in recent years. And over the next 25 years, there will be a $2.4-billion net cost to taxpayers with only an incremental reduction (a mere 1 MT CO2 per year) in GHG... In the U.S., where there is a somewhat more mature biodiesel market, prices are one-to-eight-cents-per-liter higher than regular diesel fuel... For Canadian truckers this could mean a fuel-price boost in the range of between $2,100 and $6,000 per truck, depending where biodiesel price increases fall in Canada...  CTA is calling upon the federal government to introduce amendments to its proposed regulation that will provide a level of protection for consumers...