Well, the EPA's dropping the oxygenate requirement is having an immediate effect on the East Coast-

Colonial pipeline (one of the primary pipes for the entire coast up to NY) will stop sending gasoline with MTBE starting this week, with the pipe to be basically cleared of all grades with MTBE by early April (it takes up to 21 days to get fuel from Houston to NY). All gasoline shipped will be for blending at the terminal end with ethanol, or not oxygenated at all.

So if your area is not an E10 region, and the terminal/distributors by you are not yet equipped to blend in ethanol, you will get pure, straight, unoxygenated gasoline. Good for MPGs...

Oh, and from reading their ship plan, the summer fuel (high vapor pressure) will start to pump from Houston about next week. So it will be in your tank about 3-4 weeks later.

Is the tradeoff more smog?

I thought MTBE was a cheap octane boaster as well as oxygenator, will gas cost more without it?

MTBE is an oxygenator, but it is also a carcinogen and an invasive pollutor. That's why it has been outlawed. MTBE has been found to contaminate ground water an wells in every region that has introduced it in their gasoline. Sometimes the cure is worse than the disease.

JeffD

Gas may cost a tad more since the replacement (if one is added locally) will be ethanol, which must be blended in locally. The cost of adding MTBE was virtually nil.

You'll need to check with your state/county commerce dept to see what their policy will be- some regions have oxygenation requirements in addition to the old EPA ones, and will have ETOH added; other areas will do without.

Remember- the EPA removed the requirement to allow suppliers time to adjust in their own way to the upcoming low-sulphur and virtually mandatory ethanol-blended fuels that are coming in the next year or so. So in the short term some areas will not have oxygenated fuel but after a year or two the fuel is supposed to be even 'better' than the old RFG. I don't know the specifics offhand, but cruise theEPA site and its all there.

Isn't MTBE not safe? I thought there were lots of health problems related to MTBE? Anybody know?

Read jdenenberg's post.

Here's the EPAs writeup.

http://www.epa.gov/mtbe/water.htm#concerns

As in the famous case of Erin Brockovich, there is no evidence that MTBE or Chromium-6 is harmful in water. Both substanced have been found to be carcinogenic if INHALED directly in huge doses as opposed to the parts per billion levels we might see. Soon enough some lawyers will find a way of getting rich off us taxpayers because of MTBE, like in the Brockovich case. In her case it was fortunately only California residence, PG&E simply and legally increased utility rates to pay for the settlement.

In MTBEs case, in drinking water, at levels of 20-40ppb it becomes detectible by smell, kinda ruining it's use as drinking water for most of us, but there doesn't appear to be any health problems.