NPRA Warns of Dangers of EPA Greenhouse Gas Regulation

WASHINGTON, March 4, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ – Environmental Protection Agency regulation of greenhouse gas emissions by U.S. petroleum refineries could drive many refineries out of business, depriving hundreds of thousands of American workers of their jobs and weakening America's economic and national security, according to NPRA, the National Petrochemical & Refiners Association.

"The unilateral regulation of GHGs (greenhouse gases) by the United States … will place domestic fuel manufacturers at an almost insurmountable competitive disadvantage to the foreign companies and countries that want to ship foreign gasoline, foreign diesel fuel and foreign jet fuel to the United States," NPRA President Charles T. Drevna wrote in a letter delivered today to EPA Assistant Administrator for Air and Radiation Gina McCarthy.

The letter was submitted to accompany oral testimony by NPRA at an EPA "listening session" on EPA's proposal to issue a New Source Performance Standard for greenhouse gas emissions from America's domestic refineries.

Drevna pointed out in his letter that millions of American workers who once supported their families by manufacturing autos, steel, textiles, shoes and other products lost their jobs over the past four decades as more and more U.S. manufacturing plants closed and imports of foreign products into the United States soared.

"Our nation's petroleum refineries remain one of the last internationally competitive segments of the American manufacturing base," Drevna wrote, pointing out that 95 percent of the gasoline, diesel fuel, home heating oil, jet fuel and lubricants used every day by Americans is manufactured in the United States.

"There is no guarantee that the United States' domestic refining manufacturing base will continue to be in existence two or three decades from now," Drevna added. "Our members' gasoline, diesel fuel and jet fuel manufacturing plants could well go the way of many domestic auto plants, virtually all of our domestic textile mills, and many domestic steel plants over the next two or three decades."

"NPRA is convinced that many legislators on Capitol Hill and a large majority of the American people want this country to grow its domestic manufacturing base, not shrink it," Drevna concluded. "They want to create and preserve American jobs, not export them to other countries. And they want affordable, reliable, domestically produced transportation fuels, not energy pipe dreams and a supply of transportation fuels subject to the political whims of foreign companies and governments that may or may not share America's interests."

SOURCE National Petrochemical & Refiners Association

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