EPA lifts requirement to add oxygen to gas

WASHINGTON – States no longer will have to add corn-based ethanol or MTBE to gasoline to fight pollution – a requirement that costs as much as 8 cents a gallon – under rules announced Wednesday by the Environmental Protection Agency.

The rules eliminate a mandate from the 1990 Clean Air Act that gasoline used in metropolitan areas with the worst smog contain 2 percent oxygen by weight. The law did not say which oxygenate must be used, but most refiners use either ethanol or methyl tertiary butyl ether, known as MTBE.

California, New York and Connecticut unsuccessfully had asked the EPA for a waiver of the requirement because the states had banned MTBE after finding it polluted the groundwater. The states were forced to use ethanol, which they contend worsened pollution problems.

The rules announced Wednesday put in place a part of the energy bill the president signed in August that did away with the 2 percent oxygenate requirement.

Parts of more than a dozen states fall under the 2 percent oxygenate requirement, according to the EPA, while others use oxygenates voluntarily. Nationwide, about 30 percent of gasoline contains oxygenates.

The states required to use oxygenates in certain areas are: California, Connecticut, New York, Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, Wisconsin and the District of Columbia.