Carbon monoxide issue

April 17, 2000
We fully agree with your comments (OGJ, Mar. 27, 2000, p. 25), except to observe that the wintertime carbon monoxide needs are not really a "smaller program."

We fully agree with your comments (OGJ, Mar. 27, 2000, p. 25), except to observe that the wintertime carbon monoxide needs are not really a "smaller program."

Since most of the CO-noncompliance areas have overlapped the RFG regions, the separate oxygenated gasoline demand has appeared to be minimal. However, if RFG had no oxygenates, then the oxygenated gasoline program would become much more evident. We calculate that this could amount to about 21% of the gasoline pool in the winter, for a 17% yearly average. (The seasonality is somewhat masked by Minnesota's year-round requirement.) The need for oxygen as such in RFG is debatable, but it is surely needed for carbon monoxide abatement and much harder to explain away.

At DeWitt, we have been following this convoluted situation with growing concern that everyone involved is posturing for political gain and that there has been little or no effort to find practical answers. Is there some way that the parties to this dispute could still find the resolve to sit down and examine the practical effects of the various options? This was done with considerable success in the "Reg-Negs" after the passage of the CAA in the early 1990s. Nobody got everything they wanted, but collectively they forged a most successful program.

K. Dexter Miller Jr.
Vice-president
DeWitt & Co.
Houston