Ethanol Backers Say Higher Blends Would Reduce Air Toxics

by Renee Schoof (Bloomberg BNA) A group of farm-state governors and some advocates for clean energy are pressing the Environmental Protection Agency to get tougher on toxic air pollution from motor vehicles in a way that could lead to a bigger market for ethanol.

The Governors' Biofuels Coalition, a group of 24 governors chaired by Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon (D), said earlier this month that its advocacy for ethanol this year would include “asking EPA to enforce Section 202 of the Clean Air Act to limit aromatics and open the market for ethanol as a source of clean octane.”

Higher octane fuels are in demand for development of the cleaner, more efficient vehicle engines of the future. More ethanol is one way to increase octane, and if the arguments of its supporters prevailed and barriers fell, demand for ethanol could increase. Ethanol backers are using a strategy of attacking hydrocarbon aromatics for their contribution to mobile source air toxics.

The EPA rejected criticism that it was failing to enforce the air law's requirements to control hazardous pollutants from vehicles and fuels. An agency spokeswoman told Bloomberg BNA that it did so most recently in a rule that was finalized in 2007, which required reductions of benzene, one of the most potent aromatic compounds in gasoline and a known carcinogen. Aromatics, according to the EPA, are a type of hydrocarbon, some of which are toxic, that are sometimes added to gasoline to increase octane.

The agency also has taken other steps to reduce emissions of mobile air toxics, including aromatic hydrocarbons, such as finalizing Tier 3 vehicle emissions and fuel standards in 2014, the spokeswoman said. The standards are expected to reduce benzene by 26 percent by 2030.

The health risks from toxic air pollution from vehicles include cancer, neurological and cardiovascular damage, harm to the liver and kidneys, and effects on respiratory, immune and reproductive systems.

The Energy Future Coalition, a clean energy advocacy group, wants the EPA to go further and eliminate aromatic hydrocarbons from motor fuels.

The coalition also has argued that a mid-level blend of ethanol such as E30 (30 percent ethanol, 70 percent gasoline) would be a cleaner octane-boosting alternative.

“We think E30 is the solution, or at least a solution, because it simultaneously achieves a lot of these reductions that we're talking about and at the same time improves vehicle efficiency, which is itself a pollution reducer,” said Gustafson (Adam Gustafson, an attorney with Boyden Gray and Associates), who has represented the group in litigation.

The Energy Future Coalition, Urban Air Initiative and the states of Kansas and Nebraska filed a lawsuit against the EPA challenging the model (Kansas v. EPA, D.C. Cir., No. 14-1268, brief filed07/02/15); (129 ECR, 7/7/15).

Petitioners argued in a brief that the model was so flawed that its estimates about ethanol reflected “the opposite of what happens in reality.” The model associates higher ethanol content with increased emissions of nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds, the two main precursors of ground-level ozone, fine particulates (PM2.5), sulfur dioxide (SO2) and other pollutants, the brief said, adding that actually blending ethanol into fuel has been shown to reduce emissions of criteria pollutants, precursors and other air toxics.

The petitioners also made a case on a procedural ground, saying the EPA did not provide a required public notice and comment period. The EPA in its brief defended the model and said the litigation should be dismissed because the changes to MOVES2014 didn't constitute a final agency action under the Clean Air Act. Oral arguments are scheduled Feb. 11 in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (17 ECR, 1/27/16). READ MORE