[Dog Gone]

Yep, the rational choice is to get rid of RFG altogether. Simply banning MTBE, which makes up a significant portion of an actual gallon of gasoline, will cause a gasoline shortage of an unacceptable magnitude.

It either needs to be phased out over a period of a couple of years, or the stupid rules about California gasoline need to be dumped altogether.

The latter would be my choice, but I know it won't be Davis's.

If we had a national standard for gasoline formulation, there wouldn't be shortages in each region, something that is essentially guaranteed every year under current rules.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

If we had a national standard for gasoline formulation, there wouldn't be shortages in each region, something that is essentially guaranteed every year under current rules.

Isn't that in the Cheney / Bush Energy plan?

[Carry_Okie]

National mandates? Once-size-fits-all specifications? Don't we know better than that? If people want to pay for oxygenates to reduce photoreactive smog, why shouldn't they be free to do so? It may resolve to a niche product, but there is nothing wrong with that.

I have a problem with mandates of any kind and (as you might expect) advocate a system that incorporates the price of air treatment into the buying decision. My trees would appreciate the investment and will take plastic. :-)

[quimby]

Yep, the rational choice is to get rid of RFG altogether. Simply banning MTBE, which makes up a significant portion of an actual gallon of gasoline, will cause a gasoline shortage of an unacceptable magnitude.

No shortage should occur and here's why. In terms of enegy content, MTBE is close to zero. When the original tests were done, measurements were done related to pollutants per gallon of gasoline-- not pollutants per mile driven. In fact, the mileage for MTBE gas in CA is lower than federal reformulated gas, so supply would not be a problem if we switched to federal reformulatd gas.

But wait, it gets better. To comply with federal legislation (Clean air act) we must use either MTBE or ethanol, which is not produced here in CA. And their is no pipeline to get it here.

For more info on MTBE (Proven carcinogen) check link:

www.pushback.com/