Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, February 16, 1995 TAG: 9502160045
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-13 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ROBERT J. MCCOOL
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Look at smog levels, for example. They are 20 percent lower today than they were just 10 years ago. The reduction in airborne pollutants is even greater. Lead, carbon monoxide and sulfur dioxide have dropped 89 percent, 34 percent and 23 percent, respectively, since 1983. This striking improvement occurred even though we drive twice as many cars and 21/2 times the number of miles as we did just 30 years ago. As additional provisions of the federal Clean Air Act of 1990 are implemented, this positive trend will continue.
One of the more significant air-quality measures took effect Jan. 1 in many communities across the country, and it was launched so smoothly it went largely unnoticed.
It was the introduction of a new generation of motor fuel, called reformulated gasoline (RFG), specifically engineered for use in today's internal combustion engines to improve the air we breathe. It's a major story in the ongoing effort to reduce automotive emissions and clean up America's air.
With the new year, RFG was required in all or part of 17 states - California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas, Virginia and Wisconsin - and the District of Columbia. Included are the nine largest urban areas of the country with the most severe smog problems: Baltimore, Chicago, Hartford, Houston, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, New York, Philadelphia and San Diego.
RFG was developed in response to requirements of the U.S. Clean Air Act through a negotiating process that included the petroleum industry, automakers, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the states and environmental groups.
Specifically, RFG will help clean the air in those areas where it's needed by reducing smog-forming emissions from vehicles.
These emissions will be reduced by 15 percent in 1995, and by 25 percent at the turn of the century. Coming on top of the already reduced smog levels, this is no small achievement.
More good news is the fact that the infrastructure for making, distributing and marketing this new product is already in place through the industry's existing plants, pipelines 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's built from the same basic recipe as the conventional gasoline we've been using for years, so it's perfectly suited for the cars driven in the United States today. Put that down as another economic benefit when compared with other fuel choices or alternative vehicles.
So, when RFG is coupled with newer cars that have reduced emissions and with regular auto inspections and tune-ups, Americans can expect the air they breathe to get even better.
Still, some in government and special-interest groups are pushing an agenda that would force expensive and unproven technologies on the consumer.
For example, the technology for the electric car is impractical and uneconomical. Yet certain states would mandate its use and have the cost subsidized through increases in everyone's electric utility bills and higher prices for gasoline-powered automobiles.
Those kinds of subsidies and price increases might be less questionable if indeed there were no other solutions available to our air-quality problems. But there is a solution, for which the investments have already been made.
It's reformulated gasoline. It works. And it's here.
Robert J. McCool is executive vice president of the U.S. Marketing and Refining Division of Mobil Corp.
- Knight-Ridder/Tribune
by CNB