For 30 years, drivers in Jefferson County, plus parts of Bullitt and Oldham counties, have had to buy reformulated, rather than conventional, gasoline under a federal initiative to improve the region’s ozone problem. But now, state and local government officials say enough progress has been made to safely opt out.
Federal data from early June show regular reformulated gas cost 34 cents more per gallon than conventional gas, on average, in the Midwest. But Byron Gary of the Kentucky Resources Council said complicating factors make it hard to isolate the causes of such price differences.
He noted reformulated gas is mainly sold in and around cities. “And urban areas can often see higher prices for a number of things, for a number of different reasons,” he said.
Government officials are now collecting public comment on whether the Louisville area should opt out of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s reformulated gas restrictions.
People can submit comments to the Louisville Metro Air Pollution Control District through July 2. They also can send their thoughts to the Kentucky Division for Air Quality through July 6.
Burning reformulated gas contributes less to dangerous ozone pollution than using conventional gas. That’s why, back in the 1990s, Kentucky opted into a federal requirement to sell reformulated gas in the Louisville area.
The effort did make a difference, but circumstances have changed, according to a draft proposal by the Air Pollution Control District and state Division for Air Quality.
The agencies say dropping the reformulated gas rule now shouldn’t prevent this region from meeting federal limits on ozone pollution, even though Louisville has repeatedly overshot those standards.
Two key reasons it’s safe to stop requiring reformulated gas sales, they say, are:
- Updated federal standards led to cleaner conventional gas, significantly narrowing the gap with reformulated gas in terms of how much it contributes to ozone pollution.
- They expect any relevant increase in emissions from dropping reformulated gas will be largely counterbalanced by Louisville Gas and Electric’s recent closure of a coal-fired unit at its Mill Creek facility, plus LG&E’s plan to retire another coal unit there.
Gary, with the Kentucky Resources Council, previously worked for the local Air Pollution Control District. He indicated that, at first glance, the case government agencies are making to ditch the reformulated gas requirement makes sense.
“RFG (reformulated gas) is definitely still a net positive … but the benefit there has significantly shrunk since it was first adopted,” he said. “If we were to start from scratch on how to address ozone, it is not the first measure that I would be arguing for – either to keep around or to implement again today.”
