The state Air Quality Control Commission is considering scrapping a wintertime program that requires ethanol be added to gasoline sold in Denver – a move Colorado corn growers say could cost them $80 million a year in sales.
The proposal is being driven by plummeting levels of carbon monoxide, a pollutant caused by incomplete engine combustion that once plagued the Front Range.
In the 1970s, Denver had the worst levels of carbon monoxide in the nation, about four times what regulators say is safe.
While the federal Clean Air Act set basic gasoline standards, states can adopt their own requirements for special, local blends, sometimes called “boutique fuels.”
In 1988, Denver became the first city in the nation to require gasoline to be blended with ethanol, a clean-burning, high-octane fuel made from corn. The ethanol adds more oxygen to improve combustion and lower carbon monoxide levels.
Since then, carbon monoxide levels have dropped by about 50 percent in Denver, prompting the air quality commission to considering dropping the city’s oxygenated fuels program.
Ethanol industry officials say terminating the Denver program will mean they will lose guaranteed sales of 113 million gallons of ethanol. That’s about 40 million bushels of corn, or one-third of the corn grown in Colorado.
At today’s prices, that’s a potential loss of $80 million a year, said John Cevette, executive director of the Colorado Corn Growers Association.
“Environmentally, it’s a crazy proposition when you consider the long-term success of the program,” Cevette said.
State environmental regulators say it’s not the oxygenated fuels program that’s making a difference, it’s emission-reducing technology now standard on cars.
In 1975, manufacturers began equipping cars with catalytic converters, which convert carbon monoxide in auto exhaust into a harmless compound.
“It’s important to give credit to the car manufacturers – or rather EPA for making the car manufacturers come up with cleaner cars,” said Mike Silverstein, a state air pollution control division manager.
Declining pollution levels across Colorado have already led state environmental regulators to pull oxygenated fuel requirements in Colorado Springs, Fort Collins and Greeley.
When the program was launched, the blended fuel was reducing pollution levels by 25 percent to 30 percent, Silverstein said. Today, because of changes in car technology, the oxygenated gasoline is lowering carbon monoxide by 4 percent, he said.
Colorado refiners support abolishing the requirement.
“We want to make it clear, we don’t have a problem with the ethanol industry” said Stan Dempsey Jr., president of the Colorado Petroleum Association. “We do have a problem with heavy-handed, command-and-control approach to enforcement.”
If the commission decides to pull the Denver program, the requirements won’t be lifted until 2008, Silverstein said. Even then, gasoline sold in Denver will likely contain some ethanol because blending is economical for refiners, who receive tax incentives for offering a 10 percent mixture, Dempsey said.
Staff writer Kim McGuire can be reached at 303-820-1240 or at kmcguire@denverpost.com.
