http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12015 Planet Ark Environmental News: US oil industry pushes for easing of gasoline rules
USA: August 14, 2001 NEW YORK - The U.S. oil industry has asked the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to back the elimination of oxygen-content rules in clean-air gasoline as a way to lower pump prices, the American Petroleum Institute (API) said Yesterday. The oil industry says the nation's refiners can produce clean gasoline more cheaply without adding oxygenates, like MTBE or ethanol, helping them to prevent price spikes and shortages like the one that hit the Midwest last summer. The EPA - which in June denied California's request to be freed from oxygenate rules - is examining ways to limit the number of different fuel blends required at U.S. pumps as part of the Bush administration's plan to revamp energy policy. "Lifting the oxygenate requirement would make the boutique fuel problem much easier to solve," said Ed Murphy, director of the API. "If the EPA is serious about making the nation's supplies more flexible, while still keeping clean-air benefits, they should recommend eliminating the mandate." The oxygen mandate requires that clean air reformulated gasoline, used at a third of the nation's pumps, contain a certain amount of oxygen as a way to dilute toxic fuel ingredients like benzene. BOUTIQUE FUEL WOES Oil refiners use the chemical methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE) as well as corn-based ethanol as their oxygenates of choice, but both have proven troublesome for the industry, and technology exists to reduce fuel pollutants without them. Several states have banned MTBE due to its damaging effects to groundwater, and states like California are trying to avoid using the alternative ethanol due to high costs of transporting the product from the Midwest corn belt and worries it will create more smog in summer. Retail gasoline prices have surged two summers in a row, hitting an all-time high of $1.72 a gallon (38 cents a litre) in June, due in part to short-supply of clean-air gasoline. The Federal Trade Commission launched a probe into high prices in the Midwest last summer, but found no wrongdoing by the oil industry. So far, the EPA has been cold to the idea of eliminating the oxygen mandate, imposed by Congress under the Clean Air Act of 1990, but administrators said the concerns will be included in their boutique fuel review. "We've heard the statements and we will put that into the report," said Dr. Don Zinger, EPA Assistant Director of Transportation and Air Quality. The EPA expects to submit its recommendations in a draft report by October. CALIFORNIA LEADS THE WAY California filed suit against the EPA last week in an effort to overturn the agency's order requiring it to use oxygenates in its gasoline, a move state officials said was motivated more by politics than a desire to enforce clean-air standards. California will be forced to use ethanol under the oxygenate mandate because it set a self-imposed 2003 deadline to stop all use of MTBE which was found to be contaminating the state's groundwater. "We do not believe subsidizing Midwest corn farmers is a clean air strategy," said Roland Hwang, a policy analyst with the pro-environmental group the Natural Resources Defense Council. The API said it has suggested that the EPA recommend limiting boutique fuels to three or four different evaporation standards, a California clean air standard, and a clean air standard for the rest of the nation - with none requiring an oxygenate. There are currently dozens of different boutique blends - the result of states making independent decisions about meeting clean air requirements mandated by the EPA. Story by Richard Valdmanis REUTERS NEWS SERVICE Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Please do NOT send "unsubscribe" messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
