Refinery Provision in House Bill Makes Good Sense

A provision in the energy bill being debated in the House of Representatives addresses petroleum refineries and their use of hydrofluoric acid (HF) as a catalyst to produce alkylate, an essential ingredient for today’s gasoline. Specifically, this provision of HR 1 would exempt refineries from the most expensive part of EPA’s latest Risk Management Plan proposal, the requirement that all manufacturing facilities using significant volumes of HF conduct multi-million-dollar assessments of alternative technologies. Here’s why this part of HR 1 makes sense from a safety and risk perspective: