The Senate Wednesday unanimously approved Senate Bill 1037 (Vogel-R-Beaver) directing the Environmental Quality Board to adopt a regulation to repeal the requirement for summer, low-RVP gasoline in seven Western Pennsylvania counties.
The counties include Allegheny, Armstrong, Beaver, Butler, Fayette, Washington and Westmoreland.
This “summer gas” is routinely more expensive than gasoline sold in the rest of Pennsylvania and also in neighboring Ohio and West Virginia.
Requiring the EQB to adopt a regulation means summer gasoline would still be in effect this summer because the requirement to switch to low-RVP gasoline begins May 1. It takes 18 months or more to adopt regulations.
Since 1999, the Department of Environmental Protection and federal Environmental Protection Agency have required that gasoline sold between May 1 and September 15 in the seven-county Greater Pittsburgh Area have a RVP of 7.8psi. Regular gasoline has an RVP of 9.0.
“This means that people in a seven-county area of western Pennsylvania often pay 10 to 15 cents more per gallon for gas than those in neighboring counties and just across the border in Ohio,” said Sen. Vogel. “Basically, the RVP regulation is nothing more than a hidden tax, not only at the pump but also on goods and services. Senate Bill 1037 ends that unfair and costly regulation on the people of western Pennsylvania.”
In 2012 Sen. Vogel sponsored legislation signed into law as Act 135 that required the Department of Environmental Protection to review the requirement for low-RVP gasoline in Western PA and report to the Senate and House Environmental Committees.
Act 135 also authorizes the Governor to submit a request to the U.S. EPA to waive the low-RVP gasoline requirement if DEP documents disruptions in the supply of compliant gasoline or when five percent of the gasoline retailers in Allegheny, Armstrong, Beaver, Butler, Fayette, Washington and Westmoreland counties are unable to obtain an adequate supplies.
The bill now goes to the House for consideration.
