Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg is calling on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to expedite the city's application to opt out of a clean fuel program.
The city has been part of the reformulated gas program since 1995 in an effort to cut down on ground-level ozone, a type of air pollution. Louisville’s participation means what’s sold at Louisville pumps is different from the conventional gas sold elsewhere in Kentucky. The reformulated gas, and its environmental benefits, come with a price tag for customers, an increased fuel cost of about 10 to 30 cents per gallon.
Standing outside of Bader's Foodmart downtown, Greenberg announced Wednesday that he sent a letter to EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin asking him to speed up the process of removing Louisville from the program. The process started in February, when the city and Gov. Andy Beshear filed a formal opt-out request.
“For 30 years, all of us in Louisville have paid more at the pump because of the RFG,” Greenberg said. “That extra cost adds up incredibly quickly for Louisville families, especially when the cost of everything else continues to rise.”
Greenberg argued that the environmental benefits of reformulated gas no longer outweigh the economic harm to Louisville families.
Some studies have found that the reformulated gas program doesn’t make as much of a difference as it once did. The EPA has increased regulations on conventional gasoline since the 1990s and vehicles now have higher fuel efficiency and emissions standards.
The local Air Pollution Control District and the Kentucky Division of Air Quality support the effort to remove Louisville from the program. Both agencies say reformulated gas is not needed to continue making air quality better.
Despite steady improvements in Louisville’s air quality in recent decades, the American Lung Association gave the city a failing grade in its 2025 State of the Air report. The association said Louisville continues to be second-worst in the region for ozone pollution and, in 2024, the city had more unhealthy air quality days than the year prior.
Greenberg said Wednesday that opting out of the reformulated gas program will not hurt the city’s improvement efforts.
“All of our nonprofit agencies have an incredibly important role to play with the city and state as we work to make Louisville healthier, which I talk about all the time,” he said. “By that, I mean our air, water, soil, everything about the health of our community. Removing RFG will not stymie those goals.”
The process for getting out of the program requires Louisville to submit data showing that the city is on the path meeting air quality standards and that they have a plan to maintain compliance. Greenberg said that information was sent to the EPA this week.
