Federal mandates, real costs: EPA’s gas policy hits Coloradans at the pump
By Michael Booth | The Colorado Sun
The future of Colorado’s ozone-fighting reformulated gasoline is getting a lot more complicated this spring.
To recap:
The Front Range creates so much toxic ozone that we blew through EPA limits a long time ago.
One sanction the EPA gave us for these “severe” violations is that in summer months, we must buy “reformulated gas,” or RFG, that creates less ozone-causing vapor.
Oil companies and Gov. Jared Polis say the benefits of RFG in fighting ozone are minimal, and the refining process costs consumers up to 50 cents more a gallon.
The EPA said no, the extra cost is only a few cents a gallon. Plus, the EPA said, while Suncor controls 40% of the gasoline market here, other gasoline companies would expand their RFG pipelines and ...