All News Releases By Date

 

NTC Statement by Richard Wilson Acting Assistant Administrator for Air and Radiation U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

Release Date: 05/05/98
Contact Information:

“EPA is today making available a staff paper that examines the possible effects of sulfur in gasoline on the technology that motor vehicles use to reduce tailpipe emissions.

“The Clean Air Act requires EPA to consider whether or not further reductions in air pollution from motor vehicles will be required beginning in the year 2004. Sulfur in gasoline is an important part of any future decisions about tailpipe standards because sulfur inhibits the performance of catalytic converters -- the clean-air technology used in motor vehicles to reduce tailpipe emissions. The new staff paper on sulfur content in gasoline makes no final regulatory decisions, although it generally supports the need for some level of sulfur control.

“The petroleum refining industry already has proposed voluntary reductions in sulfur content in gasoline, and EPA is expected to make its own regulatory proposal in December, 1998.”




Current national sulfur content in gasoline averages slightly more than 300 parts per million outside of California, where sulfur controls already exist that average 40 parts per million. The staff paper is available through the Internet at: https://www.epa.gov/omswww/tr2home.htm.


R-57 ###