ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR, OFFICE OF AIR AND RADIATION
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS
SUBCOMMITTEE ON CLEAN AIR, CLIMATE CHANGE &
NUCLEAR SAFETY
UNITED STATES SENATE
Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Members of the
Subcommittee, for the invitation to appear here today. I appreciate the opportunity to discuss the
vital role cleaner burning gasoline plays in improving America’s air quality
and to comment on the gasoline provisions in legislation introduced by Senator
Daschle and cosponsored by the distinguished Chairman of this Subcommittee.
The Bush Administration supported the fuel
provisions of energy legislation that passed the Senate last year. That legislation would have maintained the
environmental benefits of the Reformulated Gasoline program (RFG), prevented
toxics backsliding, removed the RFG
oxygen mandate, imposed a federal phase out of MTBE and included a national
Renewable Fuels Standard. The Administration
reaffirms its support of legislation, such as S.385, that is consistent
with this approach.
Before further discussion of this
legislation, I would like to briefly review the history and development of the
RFG program, and discuss its air quality benefits. I will also discuss on-going actions by states to address
water contamination resulting from leaks or spills of the gasoline additive
MTBE.
History of RFG
When Congress passed the Clean Air Act
Amendments of 1990, it established a number of programs to achieve cleaner
motor vehicles and cleaner fuels. These
programs have been highly successful in protecting public health by reducing
harmful emissions from motor vehicles.
In the 1990 Amendments after extensive deliberations Congress imposed
major reductions from both vehicle and fuel emission control programs. The RFG program was designed to serve
several goals. These include improving
air quality and extending the gasoline supply through the use of
oxygenates.
Congress established the overall requirements
of the RFG program by identifying the specific cities in which the fuel would
be required, the specific minimum performance standards, and an oxygenate
requirement. The oil industry, states,
oxygenate producers and other stakeholders were involved in a successful
regulatory negotiation that resulted in the development of the RFG regulations
in 1991. The first phase of the RFG
program introduced cleaner gasoline in January 1995 to help reduce vehicle
emissions that cause ozone (smog) and toxic pollution in our cities. Phase
2 of the program began in 2000 and includes more protective emission
requirements.
Under the Clean Air Act, the federal RFG
program is required in ten metropolitan areas that have the most serious air
pollution levels. Although not required
to participate, some areas in the Northeast, in Kentucky, Texas and Missouri
have elected to join, or “opt-in,” to the RFG program as a relatively
cost-effective measure to help combat their air pollution problems. Today, roughly 35 percent of this country’s
gasoline consumption is cleaner-burning reformulated gasoline. The Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 also
required that RFG contain 2.0 percent minimum oxygen content by weight. Neither the Clean Air Act nor EPA requires
the use of any specific oxygenate. Both
ethanol and MTBE are used as oxygenates in the RFG program, with fuel providers
choosing to use MTBE in about 87 percent of the RFG. Ethanol is used in 100 percent of RFG in Chicago and Milwaukee,
which are close to major ethanol production centers.
Benefits of RFG
Unhealthy smog levels are a significant
concern in this country, with over 53 million people living in counties with
air quality that does not meet the 1-hour ozone standard. Since the RFG program began eight years ago,
we estimate that it has resulted in combined annual reductions of VOC and NOx
of at least 105,000 tons, and at least 24,000 tons of toxic air pollutants. VOC
and NOx are pollutants which in the atmosphere form ozone, commonly called
smog. Ambient monitoring data from the first year of the RFG program (1995)
indicated that RFG also had a positive impact on reducing toxic emissions. RFG areas showed significant decreases in
vehicle-related tailpipe emissions. One
of the air toxics controlled by RFG is benzene, a known human carcinogen. The benzene level at air monitors in 1995,
in RFG areas, showed the most dramatic declines, with a median reduction of 38
percent from the previous year. The
emission reductions that can be attributed to the RFG program are equivalent to
taking 16 million cars off the road.
About 75 million people are breathing cleaner air because of RFG.
Contamination of Water by MTBE
Although MTBE is a high quality blending
component of gasoline, significant concern persists about its contamination of
drinking water in many areas of the country. Most MTBE contamination is the
result of leaks from fuel storage tanks, but some contamination has resulted
from fuel spills. We now know that
MTBE, if leaked or spilled, can contaminate water supplies more readily than
other components of gasoline. Public
concern has been focused on the issues
of taste and odor associated with MTBE
contamination. Current data on MTBE in
ground and surface waters indicate numerous detections of MTBE at low levels. Data from the U.S. Geological Survey
indicates a strong relationship between MTBE use as a fuel additive in an area
and finding detections of low levels of MTBE.
EPA’s Office of Research and Development is continuing to assess the
health effects associated with MTBE exposure. While EPA and the states have
made significant strides to improve the effectiveness of the Leaking
Underground Storage Tank program, MTBE contamination of ground water
persists. Most recently, Plainview, New
York, Ringwood, New Jersey, Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, Yorktown, New York and
Roselawn, Indiana, have experienced MTBE contamination of their water
supplies. It appears that the Yorktown
incident was the result of a 250 gallon spill that occurred during a gasoline
delivery at a filling station. In this
case the MTBE threatens to migrate into a reservoir that supplies water to roughly
one million users.
As a result of existing MTBE contamination
and the potential for future occurrences, seventeen states have taken
action to ban the use of MTBE as a gasoline additive in the future. Over the
next year, MTBE bans go into effect in the states of California, Connecticut
and New York At least six additional
states are considering similar bans. At the federal level, EPA published an Advance Notice of
Proposed Rulemaking in 2000 requesting comments on a phase down or phase out of
MTBE from gasoline under Section 6 of the Toxic Substances Control Act
(TSCA). TSCA is the only administrative
mechanism available to EPA for limiting or eliminating the use of MTBE. TSCA gives EPA authority to ban, phase out,
limit or control the manufacture of any chemical substance deemed to pose an
unreasonable risk to public health or the environment. But the TSCA process is cumbersome and
lengthy at best.
EPA’s Perspective on National Fuels Legislation
Because actions taken by individual states to
control or ban the use of MTBE as a fuel additive are not uniform or
coordinated, they can create concerns about fuel distribution. For example, when the MTBE bans take effect
in less than 12 months in Connecticut and New York, fuel providers will not be
permitted to supply MTBE-containing gasoline in those two states, yet
neighboring states in the Northeast will continue to allow MTBE in
gasoline. Such a patchwork approach of
state requirements will likely complicate the distribution of gasoline in that
part of the country. A significant
portion of the gasoline supplied to the Northeast comes through pipelines from
the Gulf region, but variations in state laws affecting gasoline could
potentially lead to supply constraints as refiners and distributors struggle to
ship complying fuel to individual states.
The provisions in S.385, however, would help
to address this situation in several ways.
The bill would (1) maintain the air quality benefits of the clean
fuel programs, such as RFG, (2) remove the 2 percent oxygenate requirement
under the RFG program, (3) phase out the future use of MTBE across the nation
while allowing sufficient leadtime for refiners and MTBE producers to switch
production to other gasoline blendstocks, and (4) implement a Renewable Fuels
Standard that encourages positive life cycle renewability through the use of
domestically produced renewable fuels through a national credit averaging and
trading program. It should be noted that in order to enhance the flexibility of
these provisions, states may opt out of the MTBE ban and request waivers of the
Renewable Fuel Standard.
The Administration supports these provisions
and we may offer additional views on the specifics of S.385. The changes outlined in S.385 are needed now
and are supported by what we have learned about cleaner burning fuels since
1990. In 1990, the RFG oxygen
requirement was established by Congress to meet multiple goals: improve air
quality, enhance energy security, and encourage the use of renewable
fuels. We now know that there are
better ways to achieve these worthy goals.
We and other federal agencies are committed
to working with Congress to explore ways to maintain or enhance environmental
benefits of clean fuels programs while exploring ways to increase the
flexibility of the fuels distribution infrastructure, improve fungibility, and
provide added gasoline market liquidity.
We stand ready to work with this Subcommittee as it seeks to enact fuels
legislation, such as S.385. The timely
enactment of these fuel provisions is essential. The clean fuel programs I have
talked about today are critical to our nation’s efforts to reduce the harmful
effects of air pollution and any legislation must prevent environmental
backsliding.
This concludes my prepared statement. I would be pleased to answer any questions
that you may have.