In today's hearing we will discuss the EPA's proposed gasoline sulfur regulation. While this is officially our third hearing on this issue, the last hearing seemed to get off track with discussions on the NAAQS court case. I hope we will not do that again today.
The sulfur rule is very important and I fear that the Agency is rushing to a decision without considering all of the effects of the proposed rule. I have consistently raised a number of issues for over a year and a half, which have not been addressed by the Agency such as:
The effect on fuel supply.
The impact on both small refiners and small refineries.
The timing of the proposal in light of the unproven technology and cost of equipment.
The impact on National Security.
In addition, the EPA has played games with the expected benefits from a low sulfur standard. As I showed in the last hearing, 75% of the expected benefits come from one PM 2.5 study which President Clinton has stated should be the subject of further scientific review before it is used for regulatory decisions. That study is still being reviewed by the Health Effects Institute and those results will not be made final until next year.
In addition, on June 23rd the EPA issued a Supplemental Notice to address the NAAQS court case. The original proposal cited both the 8-hour and 1-hour ozone standards for justification of the regulations. The Supplemental addressed only the 1-hour ozone standard. But when the EPA calculated the affected populations based on the 1-hour standard, the numbers dropped in half to 39 million people.
Instead of going forward and basing the regulation on the lower population figure, they switched to a different statistical model and brought the number back up to 70 million people, thus justifying the same sulfur standard.
Call me a cynic, but it seems that this Administration conducts regulatory analysis backwards. First they pick the level they want to regulate, or the standard they want to set. Then they conduct the analysis to justify their decision. It is my attention to begin to shed some light on the way regulatory decisions are made at the EPA.