Oil firms: We’re ready to comply with provisions of Clean Air Act

Who wants the implementation of the Clear Air Act (CCA) deferred anyway?

Not the major companies whose executives told the Senate committee on environment and natural resources, chaired by Sen. Roberto Jaworski, yesterday that they were ready to comply with the provisions of the law.

The position of Caltex, Shell and Petron and new player Total Finaelf took the committee by surprise in the light of the statements of Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Heherson Alvarez and Energy Secretary Vincent Perez that the CCA should be suspended because oil companies have no funds to comply with the requirements of the law.

The law requires oil firms to reduce the aromatic content of gasoline from 45 to 35 percent, and of benzene from four to two percent effective January 2003.

"Isn’t it ironic?" asked Sonia Mendoza of Mother Earth, a pro-environment non-government organization (NGO), who noted that while the oil firms are in favor of the CCA’s implementation, Alvarez and Perez wanted the law deferred.

Alvarez, however, clarified yesterday that the government may only defer the CCA’s implementation if the war in the Middle East erupts.

"If Congress passes a resolution suspending the implementation of the law because of war or for other high policy consideration, then the DENR (Department of Environment and Natural Resources) has no choice but to abide by that decision," he said. "Otherwise, the law automatically takes effect."

Alvarez said the resolution being discussed in Congress is meant "to prevent price hikes for gasoline that will almost certainly happen when oil prices go up in case of war in Iraq and, at the same time, oil firms are forced to import aromatics that will reduce carcinogenic substances in gasoline."

During the Senate committee hearing, Nicasio Alcantara of Petron Philippines, Timothy Leveille of Caltex Philippines, Eliseo Santiago of Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corp. and Rona Quijada of Total Finaelf said their companies are prepared to comply with the provisions of the CAA when it takes effect in January.

But they explained that they would be relying on the importation of additives that would make their fuel products comply with the aromatic and benzene standards of the law, rather than retool their existing refineries. — With Katherine Adraneda