State Sues EPA Over Gasoline Additives

The state of California has sued the federal Environmental Protection Agency, arguing that it overlooked scientific evidence that California gasoline does not need expensive anti-pollution additives required by federal law.

The suit, filed Friday in the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, comes after the EPA rejected California’s request to waive federal requirements to add oxygenators to gasoline sold in most areas of the state.

Those additives drive up gasoline costs by 3 to 5 cents a gallon and could send prices spiraling if there are supply shortages, state officials warn.

EPA spokeswoman Tina Kreisher said the agency would have no comment on the litigation.

The additives include MTBE (methyl tertiary butyl ether) and the corn-based ethanol, and are intended to reduce carbon monoxide emissions. But Gov. Gray Davis ordered MTBE phased out by the end of next year because it causes water pollution, leaving ethanol as the only immediate alternative.

Ethanol is distilled from corn grown in the Midwest, which could leave California susceptible to supply troubles similar to the ones that sparked the current electricity crisis, the Davis administration argues. Already, the refining industry faces $1 billion in costs to switch from MTBE to ethanol.

Davis called the EPA requirements “a straitjacket mandate” that is “not based on science but on politics, pure and simple.”

The governor’s comments came in a statement read to reporters during a conference call to announce the suit Sunday. He was joined by the head of the state Environmental Protection Agency, a spokesman for the state Air Resources Board and members of two nonprofit environmental groups.

“The potential for harm to Californians, both economically and environmentally, leaves me no choice but to fight back with both guns blazing,” Davis said.

California’s gasoline formula, along with technology in automobiles, allow the state to meet clean-air standards without additives, the Davis administration argued in requesting an EPA waiver.

The EPA rejected that claim in June, despite indications from its own staff that California’s arguments appeared scientifically sound, according to Frank O’Donnell, executive director of the Clean Air Trust, a Washington-based air pollution group supporting the waiver.

“The EPA professional staff is mortified,” O’Donnell said. “They realize this is not good, clean science, but political science.”

Roland Hwang, senior policy analyst for the Natural Resources Defense Council, called the Bush administration denial of waivers a “twisting” of the Clean Air Act aimed at pleasing agricultural interests and punishing California.

“We do not believe subsidizing Midwestern corn growers at California consumers’ expense is a clean-air strategy,” Hwang said.

To switch from MTBE, the state would need 600 million to 900 million gallons of ethanol annually, in a market that only produced 1.6 billion gallons last year, according to Winston Hickox, secretary of the California Environmental Protection Agency.

“The Midwest would like for us to rely on their assurances that there is excess capacity” to produce more ethanol, Hickox said. As a state with tough environmental laws and filthy air in several areas, California is in the awkward position of fighting the nation’s top environmental enforcer over the Clean Air Act.

But there is growing sentiment elsewhere--particularly in Northeastern states such as New York--that additives aren’t necessary and can increase other types of pollution, such as particulate matter and nitrous oxides, according to Hwang.