EPA suspends Arctic clean-diesel rules amid Middle East supply crunch

Fighting in the Middle East disrupted global fuel supplies this summer, and the effects have reached the top of Alaska. The EPA has temporarily suspended clean-fuel rules above the Arctic Circle so North Slope producers can fire up idle refining units and make their own higher-sulfur diesel — as much as 75,000 gallons a day.

The waiver, signed July 17 and good through Aug. 2, is narrower than it sounds. It covers only older vehicles and equipment originally built to burn that fuel; newer engines still require the ultra-low-sulfur kind. Tanker trucks currently haul roughly 60,000 gallons of clean diesel up from Fairbanks every day, and the waiver is meant to displace much of that and take pressure off fuel costs.

The cost falls on the people who live there. Higher-sulfur diesel puts out more soot, and soot does double damage in the Arctic: it fouls the air in Iñupiat communities already carrying a disproportionate pollution burden, and it settles on snow and ice, darkening them and speeding the melt. Alaska's own environmental agency says cutting sulfur from diesel significantly lowers emissions of particulate matter and other pollutants.

EPA says it is prepared to extend the waiver if supply stays tight.