Pollution increase would be ‘negligible’ from consumer-friendly move on gasoline prices

I read the 2006 study about the insanity of all the different fuel standards around the country. Gasoline from Raleigh, N.C., couldn’t be used in Norfolk, Va., during the summer, etc.  

I wonder if this problem is exacerbated by these varying standards.

Here is the response I got from Bernard “Bud” Weinstein, associate director of the Maguire Energy Institute at Southern Methodist University in Dallas:

“There’s no question that fuel blend switching is partly responsible for the current shortages and price spikes for gasoline in California.  I agree with you that different fuel standards around the country, along with requirements for seasonal changes in gasoline chemistry, create distribution problems for refineries and occasional headaches for consumers.  The solution is to give federal and state regulatory agencies the ability to temporarily override mandated standards when dealing with production and distribution bottlenecks, as is currently the case in California.  Any “negative” environmental impacts would be negligible.”

And here’s the response I got from a former Californian, Ryan Kellogg, an associate professor of economics at the University of Michigan whom I sought out at the direction of Severin Borenstein, the co-director of the Energy Institute at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business.

“Climate obviously varies a lot across California, so from an environmental benefits perspective it probably makes sense to do things like switch from the summer to winter blend earlier in, say, Mono County than in LA County. But, as you say, doing this creates costs in terms of having different types of fuel in different parts of the state. There are real refining and distribution costs associated with doing something like this, along with the possibility of increased market power that comes with increased market segmentation.”

So one expert says of course we could shift earlier to winter-blend gasoline with “negligible” effects. The other expert says it “probably makes sense” to let colder parts of the state use winter-blend gasoline earlier than in hotter parts of the state.

But regulations, all-important regulations, life-defining regulations — well, they are simply too important to set aside. Even if they are daffy. The average temperature in Riverside on Oct. 7 may be 20 degrees higher than much of California, but we can’t factor common sense into our policies now, can we?

Otherwise, we’ll be accused of torturing kids. On Saturday, Borenstein told the San Francisco Chronicle about the backlash he faced[6] in 1999 after suggesting the state be more flexible about its gasoline rules:

“One state senator accused me of trying to ruin the lungs of the children of Los Angeles.” 

Once again I’m struck by the fact that agnosticism and atheism are far more prevalent among the secular left than any other facet of our society, and it is the secular left that is home to an environmentalism so rigid and so dismissive of reason that it might as well be a religion.

Remember when Bill Lockyer and Darrell Steinberg[7] suggested that cities and counties whose residents opposed the endless tax-hike proposals coming out of Sacramento should receive less services? OK — but only if the Bay Area, west L.A. and Malibu bear the entire cost of California’s holier-than-thou-but-not-exactly-smart environmental policies.

But it doesn’t work that way, so we all have to spend $75 for a tank of gas.