Pay a Little More, Breathe a Lot Easier

Now comes designer gasoline, 30% to 40% cleaner than today’s fuels. With this new gas in the tank, a car’s smog-control devices will trap tons more pollution even without breakthroughs in technology.

The state Air Resources Board will meet today to decide whether oil companies should spend about $6 billion to start producing the new fuels by 1996. Some companies are ready to roll. Others are hoping for less-stringent rules that would let them spend far less on remodeling refineries--a key first step towards producing the new fuels.

But with Southern California’s air still the dirtiest in the nation and existing controls barely keeping up with the smog we produce now, any compromises must favor the air board’s approach.

Only Southern California still exceeds federal standards for nitrogen oxides, which fuses with hydrocarbons and other compounds in the bright sun to create lung-searing smog and ozone. Smog controls are tighter than ever, but the number of vehicles on the road keeps growing so that cars and trucks still account for half the region’s ozone, just as they did years ago with more primitive hardware.

An economic analysis commissioned by the Western States Petroleum Assn. says that actual costs of the fuel changeover could be closer to $10 billion and the price of a gallon of gas may rise by as much as 23 cents as a means of passing remodeling costs on to consumers.

Other petroleum companies call these estimates too gloomy. The air board staff thinks the new price will be more like a dime a gallon.

Whatever the costs, many will ask if it makes sense even to discuss raising gas prices at all during a recession? One oil company official, whose firm generally supports the change, thinks so. If California does not make its own clean gasoline, he says, it will be shipped in from outside at even higher prices.

Furthermore, during the four years it will take to convert refineries to produce the cleaner fuel, competition among suppliers should keep prices down until 1996, by which time the recession should be behind us. Meantime, the economy will benefit from $6 billion in new construction.

Finally, the industry says, the reformulated gasoline will burn cleaner than any alternative energy sources, including methanol or natural gas.

A number of industry leaders are apparently satisfied that clean gasoline can be produced and should be. The air board seems to have done its homework, made its peace with some refiners and done its best with others. So it’s time to take the next step in the war on smog.