Gasolinegate unmasks collusion between EPA and oil industry over three decades

In Washington, three decades of inaction, neglect, and collusion with the oil industry by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has masked the true emission impacts of gasoline and caused significant harm to the public, according to a new report. 

EPA’s headliner stories of the day questioning ethics and integrity are just the tip of the iceberg. The Gasolinegate report chronicles three decades of EPA collusion with the industry they are responsible for regulating, which resulted in harming the public they are sworn to protect. Emails obtained through the Freedom of Information Act provide a trail of deceit that led to a history of fake fuels and fake emissions tests, resulting in much greater risk to the public than reported.

Simply titled Gasolinegate, the report was produced by Famers Union Enterprises (FUE) and like Watergate, Tobaccogate, and Dieselgate, is about individuals subverting and ignoring the law or crossing the line of integrity and ethics, and covering it up, said Doug Sombke, Chairman of FUE. 

Despite dozens of reputable and peer reviewed studies confirming that ultrafine toxic particulates are one of the most serious public health threats in urban areas, among them pre-term births, IQ loss, and asthma, nothing has been done.  Congress has made a legislative finding of harm in Section 202(l) of the Clean Air Act which EPA and the Office of Transportation and Air Quality (OTAQ) is compelled to enforce.  Key findings of this report include the following:

Dieselgate was about the public health impact of 500,000 cars emitting more emissions than the public was told, and the cover up by Volkswagen by using on board computers as a “defeat device”.   Gasolinegate is about 263 million cars and light duty trucks emitting more than reported, particularly more toxic/carcinogenic emissions – for decades.

EPA and the Office of Transportation and Air Quality (OTAQ) colluded with the oil industry (based on Freedom of Information Act emails) to create designer fake test fuels and altered emission testing models to serve as the “defeat devices” in Gasolinegate.

EPA is hiding the truth about the enormous economic and social costs of harmful gasoline emissions and lying to Congress and the American public.  Internal EPA documents prove that EPA simply ignores the most potent emissions caused by toxic gasoline aromatics which modern vehicles emissions control systems are incapable of capturing, potentially increasing health care costs by trillions of dollars. 

That is due to the fact that 90% of urban PM emissions come from mobile sources, not power plants, and more than 80% of mobile source PM emissions come from gasoline powered vehicles, not diesel.  In the U.S., more than 260 million light-duty vehicles combust 140 billion gallons each year of gasoline, 25 – 30% of which is comprised of some of the most potent carcinogenic substances known to mankind.  The toxic, carcinogenic emissions are invisible, but they are lethal as they by-pass the lungs and can directly enter the bloodstream.

However, EPA’s Office of Transportation and Air Quality (OTAQ) contends that since passage of the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments, its policies have reduced the most harmful mobile source emissions, including toxics like benzene and known Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), by 90%.  Gasolinegate proves that EPA is lying to the Congress and American public by saying they have the problem under control.

In a series of workshops in 2015, OTAQ was forced to admit that its models are defective as EPA scientists deliberately excluded 86% of the known Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) from its emissions model, claiming that including these potent toxics would have been “outside the scope” of the model.