James M. Jeffords: “The Senator has stated the essential point of this legislation and these provisions in the energy bill, that is the…”

“The Senator has stated the essential point of this legislation and these provisions in the energy bill, that is the elimination of MTBE to protect water supplies. Its removal from the gasoline supply could encourage the replacement of fuel volumes with more toxic components, so section 834 of this legislation requires EPA to ensure maintenance of the toxics reduction over-compliance already achieved in RFG areas. EPA may comply with this requirement by amending the existing Mobile Source Air Toxics (MSAT) rule by updating the individual refinery RFG baselines from 1998-2000 to 1999-2000, and whatever other appropriate changes are necessary. We are advised by the Agency that any such changes should be minimal. The MSAT rule currently makes a distinction between baseline volume, the average volume produced during the years 1998-2000, and incremental volume, or additional volume above baseline volume. These categories are treated differently under the rule and under this legislation. Under the rule, baseline volumes must adhere to new toxic reduction standards based on actual survey data from 1998-2000 and incremental volumes are held to the statutory or regulatory reduction, whichever apply. Under this legislation, the baseline volumes must adhere to the updated toxic reduction standard based on actual survey data from 1999-2000.”