EPA, DOE Say No Changes on Federal Fuel Policies
lthough states and industry officials have called for the federal government to help ease problems of motor fuel supplies and high prices around the country, spokesmen for two key federal programs said last week there had been no changes in policy.
A spokesman for the Department of Energy said DOE remained on course to keep filling the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve to capacity, despite calls to halt the deliveries of new oil supplies into the SPR until the market pressures ease.
The Bush administration has said that it intends to fill the SPR to its capacity to build up a maximum reserve in case of a severe supply disruption that would leave the country unable to receive normal import deliveries. The spokesman said May 5 that no changes were expected in the fill program.
California and New York had both asked for an EPA waiver so that they could have the same motor fuels used in other parts of the country, and thereby both increase supplies and avoid the extra prices that come with specially refined motor fuels.
However, EPA Administrator Michael Leavitt recently said his agency was likely to reject New York’s request, Bloomberg News reported April 26.
“EPA policy is that we won’t take actions to compromise air or human health and will keep to this standard unless we are instructed otherwise,” Bloomberg reported Leavitt said in an interview in Tokyo, where he was taking part in the April 25 Earth Observation Summit.
Leavitt also said that “everyone is suffering with high gasoline prices, but there are many reasons why prices are fluctuating, such as macroeconomic factors influencing supply and demand,” Bloomberg reported.
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