EPA Would Cut Air Toxics from Gasoline, Vehicles, Containers

WASHINGTON, DC, March 3, 2006 (ENS) - Toxic fumes from gasoline, vehicles and portable gas containers would be reduced over the next 25 years under proposed new emissions standards announced late Wednesday by U.S. EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson.

The EPA's proposed Mobile Source Air Toxic (MSAT) regulations would lower emissions of benzene and the other air toxics in three ways. They would lower benzene content in gasoline, reduce exhaust emissions from passenger vehicles operated at temperatures below 75 degrees Fahrenheit, and reduce emissions that evaporate from, and permeate through, portable gasoline containers.

The proposed MSAT standards would take effect in 2011 for fuel requirements, 2010 for passenger vehicles, and 2009 for fuel containers.

The EPA issued the new air toxics standards to meet court-ordered deadlines in a lawsuit brought by two environmental groups, the Sierra Club and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, in 2004.

"America has a history of loving its cars," said EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson. "By cleaning up our fuels and vehicle exhaust, EPA is paving the road toward a cleaner environment and healthier drivers."

Burning gasoline in passenger cars and trucks releases benzene and other hazardous pollutants into the air. (Photo courtesy Office of Congressman Henry Hyde)

The EPA is proposing that, beginning in 2011, refiners would meet an annual average gasoline benzene content standard of 0.62 percent by volume on all their gasoline, both reformulated and conventional, nationwide. The national benzene content of gasoline today is about .97 percent.

Gasoline sold in California would not be covered because California has already implemented more stringent standards similar to those EPA is proposing. Once adopted, the rule would harmonize federal and California evaporative emission standards for light duty vehicles.

Reaction to the proposal was not uniformly positive. The State and Territorial Air Pollution Program Administrators (STAPPA) and the Association of Local Air Pollution Control Officials (ALAPCO) said they would seek changes to the final rule.

STAPPA/ALAPCO Executive Director S. William Becker said, "While EPA has proposed an effective national benzene standard of 0.62 percent, the agency's proposal, through its averaging, banking and trading provisions, could allow some refiners to do nothing, or even relax their already unacceptably high levels, in exchange for more stringent controls in another part of the country."

Becker said benzene and the other hydrocarbons governed by the proposed rule "show up in almost every major metropolitan area in the country in quantities that exceed safe levels."

The second National-Scale Air Toxics Assessment, released by the EPA February 22 showed that residents of most U.S. cities have an air toxics lifetime cancer risk greater than 25 in a million - a rate above the risk of people in the general population.

Lifetime cancer risk in transportation corridors and some other locations is greater than 50 in a million, the assessment shows.

Frank O'Donnell of Clean Air Watch called the draft Mobile Source Air Toxic regulations "a positive step towards reducing the cancer risk that Americans face from breathing chemicals in the air produced by cars, SUVs and pickup trucks."

Still, said O'Donnell, it is "not a substitute for other needed pollution control measures, including steps - and federal money - to clean up existing diesel engines."

The new standards will be phased in and will not be fully implemented until 2030.

A gas can optimized for safety (Photo courtesy CCSE)

As a result of this proposal, he said, in 2030 passenger vehicles would emit 45 percent less benzene, gas cans would emit 78 percent less benzene, and the gasoline would have 37 percent less benzene overall.

The estimated annual cost for the entire proposal would be $205 million.

Over the long run, reduced exposure to benzene will lead to "dozens" of fewer cancer cases per year, Johnson said. EPA estimates annual health benefits from the particulate matter reductions of the vehicle standards to total $6 billion in 2030.

The additional cost of producing gasoline to comply with the new benzene standard is expected to average $0.0013 per gallon. This per gallon cost would result from an industry wide investment in capital equipment of $500 million to reduce gasoline benzene levels, or an average of $5 million in capital investment in each refinery that adds such equipment.

A 60 day comment period will begin when the proposal is published in the Federal Register. The proposal, supporting documentation, and information about submitting comments are online at: http://www.epa.gov/otaq/toxics.htm#mobile