NPRA Highlights Harm Caused by Overregulation

WASHINGTON, Nov. 2, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Costly federal overregulation of motor fuels will bring little or no significant environmental benefit but will hurt American consumers, threaten American manufacturing jobs, and weaken U.S. security, the National Petrochemical & Refiners Association told a congressional committee today.

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"The demands of environmental overregulation – some of which are impossible to achieve without coming in conflict with other regulations – would raise energy costs for every American consumer," NPRA Senior Director of Advocacy Brendan Williams told the House Science Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment in written testimony submitted prior to his appearance before the panel this afternoon.

Williams said overregulation would "strengthen foreign competitors eager to replace American manufacturers and American workers, weaken the U.S. economy, make America more reliant on nations in unstable parts of the world for vital fuels and petrochemicals, and endanger our national security."

"We support sound and sensible environmental and other regulations," Williams said. "Our members are strongly committed to clean air and water, have an outstanding record of compliance with Environmental Protection Agency and other regulations, and have invested hundreds of billions of dollars to dramatically reduce emissions as measured by EPA."

"America's air today is cleaner than it has been in generations," Williams said. "Refiners have cut sulfur levels in gasoline by 90 percent just since 2004. We have also reduced sulfur in diesel fuel by more than 90 percent since 2005 and reduced benzene in conventional gasoline by 45 percent since 2010. EPA data shows that total emissions of the six principal air pollutants in the United States have dropped by 57 percent since 1980 and ozone levels have decreased by 30 percent."

"We believe America's national interest would best be served by comprehensive and objective cost-benefit analyses of federal regulations," Williams said. "It is not realistic to demand that every last molecule of emissions be eliminated – no matter how insignificant, and regardless of the cost in lost jobs, harm to consumers, and harm to our nation. Yet all too often, overregulation of motor fuels and environmental overregulation takes this approach."

"EPA should not have unchecked power to take any action it wants – without specific authorization by Congress – in the single-minded pursuit of unrealistic and harmful overregulation," Williams said.

Williams said that impacts on consumers, jobs, the economy and America's energy security need to be more prominently considered as relevant factors in weighing whether ever-more stringent regulations do more harm than good.

– NPRA –

NPRA is a trade association representing high-tech American manufacturers of virtually the entire U.S. supply of gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, other fuels and home heating oil, as well as the petrochemicals used as building blocks for thousands of vital products in daily life. NPRA members make modern life possible and keep America moving and growing as they meet the needs of our nation and local communities, strengthen economic and national security, and provide jobs directly and indirectly for more than 2 million Americans.

SOURCE National Petrochemical & Refiners Association