Urban Air Initiative Calls on EPA to Withdraw Erroneous Vehicle Emissions Model
In Washington, the states of Kansas and Nebraska joined the Urban Air Initiative (UAI) and the Energy Future Coalition as they petitioned the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to correct the agency’s flawed models that limit the use of higher blends of ethanol.
According to UAI representatives, for years, the EPA has published inaccurate data claiming that ethanol increases emissions, even though ethanol’s pollution reducing qualities have been demonstrated repeatedly. The false information originated with EPA’s fuel effects study known as the “EPAct study” and its vehicular emissions computer model called MOVES2014. This information is critically important because it sets the tone for EPA’s institutional bias against ethanol, and it impacts federal and state fuel policies that limit ethanol’s growth in the market and impair the nation’s air quality.
The filing is a Request for Correction of Information and is part of an ongoing effort by UAI to challenge EPA’s emissions data as well as the biased testing protocols and procedures that produced the erroneous data. The petitioners filed their initial Request for Correction in 2015. EPA declined to review that filing due to pending litigation but invited the petitioners to submit a new request later.
UAI’s Request for Correction explains in detail the fundamental flaws in the design of the EPAct study that produced EPA’s inaccurate emissions estimates. The filing also sheds light on the origin of these design flaws—EPA’s collusion with oil industry employees in the design of the study, as revealed by emails and other documents UAI obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request and related litigation. UAI refutes EPA’s emissions estimates for ethanol with peer reviewed scientific studies showing that ethanol reduces the same pollutants that EPA says it increases.”
Category: Policy
