
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, September 14, 1994                   TAG: 9409150018
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: B-5   EDITION: STATE 
SOURCE: Associated Press WASHINGTON
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

ETHANOL REQUIREMENT DELAYED

The Environmental Protection Agency was directed Tuesday to delay a requirement that would clear the way for the widespread use of corn-based ethanol in cleaner-burning gasoline.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals blocked the EPA from implementing the regulation until an oil industry lawsuit challenging the requirement aimed at ethanol can be decided.

The agency said the broader program to require cleaner-burning gasoline in regions of the country with severe smog problems would go into effect as scheduled in January.

``Regardless of this development the remainder of the reformulated gasoline program will move forward,'' said EPA spokeswoman Loretta Ucelli. On the issue of ethanol and the lawsuit, she said, ``We're confident that the issues will be resolved in our favor.''

In June, the EPA directed that a ``renewable'' additive, in effect ethanol, be a major component of a cleaner-burning gasoline that will be required beginning in January in nine cities with the worst air pollution problems.

The regulation will affect about one-third of all the gasoline sold in the country.

Under the plan, at least 30 percent of the oxygenate, which makes gasoline burn cleaner, would have to be from a renewable source. While the EPA argued it was not mandating a specific additive, officials acknowledged that for the foreseeable future ethanol is the only additive available at the quantities needed.

The regulation has been one of the toughest clean-air issues before the agency, with farm-state members of Congress pushing hard on behalf of ethanol, an oxygenate produced from corn.

But the oil industry argued that a rival additive - MTBE, made from methanol - would be less expensive and that the EPA should not dictate what additive should be used. In its lawsuit, the oil industry argues that by singling out ethanol, the EPA had violated the 1990 Clean Air Act, which makes no mention of requiring a specific fuel additive.

The lawsuit was filed by the American Petroleum Institute and later joined by the National Petroleum Refiners Association.

Although the court issued a stay, blocking implementation of the requirement for ethanol or other renewable additive, it refused to overturn the EPA regulation itself, saying that the industry had not made an adequate case for doing so.

by CNB