As if Colorado consumers weren’t already reeling from years of inflation, a federal regulation is about to raise what it costs to fill up your tank. By an estimated 60 cents per gallon.
Starting May 15, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will require northern Front Range gas stations to sell much pricier, reformulated gasoline all summer long. The premise for the higher-grade fuel — blended to reduce ozone-forming pollutants — is that our state has fallen short of meeting more stringent ozone restrictions imposed by the feds on nine Front Range counties, from Douglas County north to the Wyoming border.
As reported this week by the Colorado Chamber of Commerce news service Sum & Substance, Gov. Jared Polis has launched an eleventh-hour appeal to the federal agency to back off of its deadline for requiring the more expensive, reformulated fuel, or RFG. In an April 4 letter to the EPA, Sum & Substance reports, Polis tells agency chief Michael Regan he commissioned an analysis that has revealed “onerous and counterproductive impacts.”
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“RFG requirements threaten Colorado’s fuel supply, will raise prices and may result in shortages at the pump,” the governor wrote. “Moreover, this antiquated mandate creates an additional unintended consequence: We are seeing significant activity and requests to expand fossil fuel facilities such as terminals in the most polluted areas of Colorado in the ozone non-attainment area to supply RFG.”
The letter, which seeks a waiver from the mandate, continues, “These proposed projects from your elective enforcement of this requirement will increase emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and other ozone precursor emissions in the community, and given the lack of supply in Colorado will increase intra- and interstate fuel delivery truck traffic resulting in more, not less, harmful air pollution in our most vulnerable communities…In short, forcing this requirement on Colorado will create more air pollution.”
It wouldn’t be the first time a federal regulation backfired — resulting in unintended consequences that are in fact the opposite of the mandate’s intent. But kudos to Polis for fighting the good fight on this one, wherever it leads. All the more so considering Polis’ own turnabout on the issue.
Several years ago, Polis was welcoming the pending mandate. He wrote the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 2019, shortly after taking office, urging the agency to proceed with more stringent ozone standards.
Since then, he has seen the light — undoubtedly anticipating the likely public uproar at the EPA rule’s projected impact on the price at the pump. Colorado business leaders also reached out to the governor when the issue first came to light and pleaded with him to seek a waiver.
As we noted at that time, the EPA has been tilting at Colorado’s ozone levels for years. The Colorado Department of Health and Environment maintains that the state’s air quality actually has improved greatly over the past several decades. But, as a department official told The Denver Gazette in 2022, the state has had to “comply with increasingly stringent federal standards.”
As we also noted then, critics of the EPA policy contend a lot of the region’s ozone issues stem from uncontrollable, natural, out-of-state and even international sources.
“Most of our ozone, 60%, is naturally occurring, blows in from other states and countries, or is caused by wildfires,” Rich Coolidge of the Colorado Oil & Gas Association told The Denver Gazette.
The governor of course has been the driver of a green-energy agenda that has raised prices ever higher for Colorado energy consumers. It’s about time he tries to get them some relief, for a change.
Denver Gazette Editorial Board
