Chevron Won’t Use Pollution Exemption

At the request of Chevron Corp., the California Air Resources Board terminated a temporary variance that would have allowed the San Francisco-based oil company to sell as much as 147 million gallons of gasoline that doesn’t meet the state’s stringent environmental standards. Chevron was granted the variance July 15 after problems at its Richmond, Calif., refinery left it short of gasoline supplies. Under terms of the variance, Chevron would have to pay a 15-cent penalty for each gallon of the more-polluting conventional gas it sold, and it could not sell the non-compliant gasoline in Southern California or the Sacramento area. But Chevron said it found enough of the required cleaner-burning gasoline on the market to supply its customers and wouldn’t need to import conventional gas. The variance would have expired Aug. 30.