An editorial excerpt from the Kansas City Star reprinted in your newspaper Jan. 13, ”Cleaner is costlier,” states that less polluting gasoline will be available next year ”if the oil industry buckles down.”
The oil industry is producing and marketing cleaner gasolines, has been doing so for some time and expects to continue to introduce improvements. It is making a major effort to meet the requirement to supply oxygenated fuel in carbon monoxide non-attainment areas beginning later this year. Nevertheless, the industry has cautioned that domestic supplies of oxygenates are likely to be tight and may not be adequate.
The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that meeting the 1995 deadline of the Clean Air Act for a very simple type of reformulated gasoline will cost from 3 to 5 cents a gallon.
To meet requirements of the second phase of reformulation, for which regulations will be determined later this year, gasoline prices could go up another 20 cents a gallon by the year 2000. To make motorists aware of these substantial costs is not ”whining about how less-polluting gasoline will be so hard to make.”
The petroleum industry is committed to producing reformulated gasoline and to working with federal and state environmental officials to help achieve clean air goals in an efficient manner.
