What Is a Low-Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS)?
Sold to the public as a way to lower the carbon content of fuel and reduce the amount of CO2 emitted from our tailpipes, in reality the Low-Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) isn’t about making the fuels in your vehicle any better, cleaner or more affordable than they already are – it simply seeks to render those fuels more difficult to find and even more expensive to purchase.
State of Play: LCFS in Maine
In 2009, Maine’s Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) cited the LCFS as one of 12 emerging issues as part of its annual Government Evaluation Act Report. By December of that year, Gov. Baldacci joined 10 other northeast and mid-Atlantic states in signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) addressing an LCFS – a memo that initiates the process of implementing a statewide LCFS regime in Maine.
Following Gov. Baldacci’s announcement, James Brooks, director DEP’s Air Quality Bureau, told reporters that his department will likely conduct an independent analysis aimed at assessing how the imposition of an LCFS may ultimately impact Maine residents.
Production and Distribution: How/Where Maine Gets Its Energy
Maine has no fossil fuel reserves, and produces less than 35 percent of the energy it consumes. But thanks to the coastal ports of Portland, Searsport and Calais, Maine is able to receive petroleum products from a number of friendly foreign sources — with over 60 percent of those imports coming from Canada. Maine also reaches across its border for refining capability, receiving crude oil through its ports and sending product via the Portland Pipeline to refineries in Quebec and Ontario.
Like many northeastern states, Maine is also highly dependent on others for its essential supplies of home heating oil. In fact, Maine has the highest share of households in the nation that use fuel oil for space heating during winter months. Again, the state leans heavily on Canada for those supplies – and thus stands to be tremendously impacted by an LCFS policy that explicitly targets Canadian energy.
LCFS Impact on Maine
As mentioned, Maine’s reliance on Canadian energy imports both for the purposes of fueling vehicles and warming houses renders the state among the most vulnerable to price and supply disruption under an LCFS regime.
As they often do, these impacts are likely to fall disproportionately upon those who can least afford them. Earlier this year, President Obama issued a budget blueprint that proposes a $1.8 billion cut in the federal Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) – a fund that’s used to defray some of the costs associated with the purchase of heating oil for those in need. Under the LCFS, that heating oil is likely to see a dramatic increase in cost – and that, coupled with the reality of less money available pursuant to the LIHEAP program, may mean even tougher winters ahead for the residents of Maine.
