County wins oxygenated fuel feud

Monday, July 10, 2000 | 11:09 a.m.

Exxon Mobil Corp. and Chevron Corp. have lost a court challenge of a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ruling that allows states to set clean-fuel standards tougher than the federal government's.

The ruling allows Clark County to keep an existing rule that oil companies must sell clean-burning gasoline -- even cleaner than the federal standard -- during the winter months. The requirement, which essentially called for oil companies to sell gasoline mixed with high-oxygen ethanol, was adopted in 1997 to cut down on carbon monoxide emissions in the Las Vegas Valley.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco upheld the EPA ruling that Clark County can require companies to sell gasoline with a minimum 3.5 percent oxygen content during the winter.

Exxon Mobil, the biggest publicly traded oil company, and Chevron, the No. 2 U.S. oil company, argued that states shouldn't be able to set minimum oxygenation levels higher than the 2.7 percent federal standard.

Clark County, under a federal mandate to reduce carbon monoxide pollution, adopted the rule to require ethanol-treated fuel rather than gasoline treated by methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE), said Michael Naylor, air quality director for the Clark County Health District.

The county adopted the rule because ethanol-treated gasoline burns cleaner, he said.

Since the 1997 rule, however, the EPA has tied MTBE to contamination of underground drinking water supplies. The agency is seeking a national ban on the use of the chemical.

The oil-industry lawsuit was started against the health district and the Clark County Commission but was switched to the federal government after the EPA approved the ethanol rule last year.

Naylor said the lawsuit started with a broad coalition of oil companies, but only two were left as parties in last week's decision.

"It's taken a while for all of this to happen, but the actual rule has been on the books for some time," he said. "They didn't like the idea that a county agency was setting policy for all of the oil companies.

"It's great news. It validates the local efforts," Naylor said.

A Chevron spokesman said the company is reviewing the decision and considering further appeals. An Exxon Mobil spokesman didn't immediately return calls seeking comment.

The federal Clean Air Act of 1990 requires refiners to make and sell oxygenated, or reformulated, gasoline in the most polluted areas of the country by using additives such as MTBE or ethanol.