COMMENT RFG: THE BEST MEANS TO REDUCE AUTO EMISSIONS IN URBAN AREAS

Jan. 9, 1995
This is a slightly edited version of a press release issued last Dec. 28 as part of Mobil Corp.'s program to present facts about reformulated gasoline to the American public. Lucio A. Noto Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Mobil Corp. Fairfax, Va. Something will happen to the air in communities across America in the new year that will prove beneficial to virtually all the people who live in those areas. Yet most people know little about it.

This is a slightly edited version of a press release issued last Dec. 28 as part of Mobil Corp.'s program to present facts about reformulated gasoline to the American public.

Lucio A. Noto
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Mobil Corp.
Fairfax, Va.

Something will happen to the air in communities across America in the new year that will prove beneficial to virtually all the people who live in those areas.

Yet most people know little about it.

What's happening is the Jan. I introduction of a new generation of motor fuel, reformulated gasoline (RFG), engineered for use in today's internal combustion engines to improve the air we breathe. It's a major story in the effort to reduce automotive emissions and clean up America's air.

RFG was developed in response to requirements of the federal Clean Air Act through a process that included the petroleum industry, auto makers, Environmental Protection Agency, states, and environmental groups.

GOOD, BETTER, BEST

RFG is on sale in the nine urban areas of the country with the most severe smog problems and in areas with lesser problems as well.

The good news is that RFG will help clean up the air in those areas by reducing smog forming emissions from vehicles. In 1995, these emissions will be reduced by 15% and by 25% at the turn of the century. Coming on top of the fact that smog levels in America's cities are already 20% lower than they were 10 years ago, this is no small achievement.

Even better news is the fact that the system for refining, distributing, and marketing this new product is in place through industry's plants, transportation systems, and service stations. Without having to reinvent the wheel, and despite the higher manufacturing costs of RFG, we'll be able to hold the line on distribution costs and thus ease the burden on the consumer.

Perhaps the best news is that RFG will perform in existing vehicles. It has been thoroughly tested in the cars driven in the U.S. today and is perfectly suited to those engines. Put that down as another economic benefit when compared with other fuel choices or alternative vehicles.

NW FUELS

So with newer cars helping to reduce emissions and with regular emissions inspections and tune-ups also making an impact on clearing the air, why are the regulators-federal and state alike-pushing alternatives that won't accomplish as much but will cost business, consumers, and taxpayers millions of dollars more than reformulated gasoline? Why are unelected regulators making decisions that impact so heavily on peoples' lives?

For example, the electric car with today's technology is impractical and uneconomical. Yet certain states are mandating its use, and motorists and other citizens in those states will subsidize it in the form of electric utility bills and higher prices for gasoline powered automobiles.

Ethanol will not reduce smog. Yet EPA would mandate its use as an additive to gasoline. That mandate is being disputed in the courts. If it were allowed, the federal and some state governments would be subsidizing ethanol to the tune of nearly $1 billion of taxpayers' money in 1995.

THE SOLUTION

Those kinds of subsidies and cost increases might be deemed worthwhile if they produced some kind of benefit and if, indeed, there were no other solutions available to our air quality problems. But there is a solution for which the investments, at the behest of our federal legislators, have already been made.

It's reformulated gasoline. It's available, and it works. In your car and in the air around us. It's time regulators realized it.

Copyright 1995 Oil & Gas Journal. All Rights Reserved.