To contrast this corporate loophole/ripoff, there was this story in the Charlotte Observer this weekend.
A local gent had converted his '81 MB to run on SVO, because he felt strongly about our dependence on foreign oil. He was buying 5 gallon jugs of soybean oil at Costco, and paying 30% more (along with sales and food taxes) than what ULSD out of the pump would have cost him.
One weekend when they were having a race at Charlotte Motor Speedway, the state inspectors were there in force checking diesel RV's and motorhomes, trying to catch someone using offroad (dyed) diesel. When the above gent came rolling into the speedway parking lot, and the inspectors saw the bumper sticker proclaiming he was running on veggie oil, they snagged him big time.
A $1000 fine from NC for "purposely trying to avoid the state fuel tax" of 30 cents per gallon, another $1000 fine from the feds for basically the same reason, and told that in the future if he wanted to avoid such penalties he would have to post a $2500 bond EACH YEAR with the state of NC to legally run veggie oil in his vehicle.
Yep, the powers that be are all in favor of alt fuels - provided they still have access to YOUR wallet.
