'Blue Ribbon' Panel Sought

Diesel Fuel News, Oct 15, 2001 by Jack Peckham

Washington, DC -- National Petrochemical & Refiners Association president Jerry Thompson told the Hart World Fuels Conference last month that U.S. EPA should convene a "blue-ribbon panel" to review the agency's highway ultra-low-sulfur diesel (ULSD) rule, because of fears of a massive fuel shortage and disastrous price spikes.

But a senior EPA official at the Hart conference said the agency has "no plans" to convene such a panel.

"At this point there are no plans to create another panel -- that can be cumbersome," EPA's Assistant Administrator Jeff Holmstead said here. "But we've committed to get a robust stakeholder process, and our White Paper [on non-road diesel fuels/emissions limits, expected this fall] will be one step toward that."

EPA next summer intends to use its normal federal advisory committee act (FACA) process to perform a "compliance review" on its 2006/7 highway diesel rule. This means tapping EPA's well-established mobile source tech review subcommittee (MSTRS), a rather large group that historically not only has had a tough time reaching consensus, but also hasn't been too sympathetic to refiner problems with EPA desulfurization mandates.

By contrast, a smaller "blue ribbon panel" as NPRA suggests still could include key stakeholders, such as state air pollution regulators, environmental/health advocates, vehicle/engine makers, emissions control experts and oil refiners. Such a panel potentially could have a better chance to come up with some sort of consensus recommendation to EPA, said Thompson, Citgo's senior vice-president.

But even if such a panel could agree upon something, getting EPA to change its position would be far from certain.

Evidence: EPA earlier appointed another "blue-ribbon panel" to recommend whether to phase-out a water-polluting ether additive, MTBE, from gasoline. While the panel voted in favor of an MTBE phase-out, EPA has done nothing to eliminate MTBE, allow refiners to meet equivalent standards without oxygenates, or even allow states to exit "fuel oxygenate" mandates. Reason: The ethanol lobby continues to block any free-market environmental initiatives, favoring mandates over choice.

Similarly, EPA abruptly terminated its FACA non-road diesel advisory work group last month, shortly after the group announced it would try to achieve a consensus recommendation on non-road diesel fuels and emissions limits by October.

Until that point, refiners had made at least some progress getting other industry and regulatory advocates to consider the notion that a market-based approach for introducing ULSD for non-road customers perhaps could work, as long as widespread fuel availability and misfueling prevention could be assured. "But we were not anywhere close to a consensus" on non-road fuels/emissions limits, explains work group member Michael Leister of Marathon-Ashland Petroleum, a vigorous advocate of a market based ULSD supply approach for catalyst equipped diesel engines.