The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has come under fire for its plan to give Venezuelan gasoline special treatment under the reformulated gasoline (RFG) rule.
EPA declined to give Venezuela relief in its Dec. 15 RFG rule (OGJ, Dec. 20, 1993, p. 29) but later proposed an exemption for foreign refineries that only Venezuela is likely to meet. A May 23 public hearing is planned on the proposal.
Senate environment committee chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) criticized EPA's proposed exemption at a recent oversight hearing and pledged to fight it with legislation and by dening EPA appropriations funds. He claimed Venezuelan officials complained to the White House, which ordered EPA to grant the exemption without new data to show need for the policy change.
SOURCE OF CONTROVERSY
The rule requires refiners to make their non-RFG gasoline in 1995 as clean as it was in 1990 to prevent them from "dumping" high emission RFG byproducts into conventional gasolines. U.S. refiners will have to meet their 1990 gasoline baseline levels, but because EPA could not verify baselines for foreign refiners, they were given a statutory baseline.
Petrleos de Venezuela has embarked on a $1 billion refinery upgrading program to meet U.S. RFG requirements and double gasoline exports to the U.S.-mostly the Northeast-by 1995. Currently, Venezuelan gas has more olefins than U.S. gasolines but is cleaner in some other respects. Venezuela claims the RFG rule could cost it $150 million/year in gasoline sales in 1995-97.
EPA said the proposed rule was issued after EPA realized Pdvsa probably has the data necessary to establish accurate individual baselines for its refineries. Under the proposal, EPA could approve a baseline for any foreign refinery with the needed data. The baseline would establish the quality and volume of gasoline exported to the U.S. in 1990 and limit export volumes to 1990 levels. EPA is not opposed to changing the proposed rule but refuses changes that would undermine effectiveness of the overall RFG rule.
