Waiving Regulation of Fuel Blends in Wake of Hurricane

I was reading this speech, and the POTUS apparently said his cabinet suggested waiving rules on fuel blends to ease shortages.

Link

Bush outlined some of the steps already announced by his Cabinet secretaries, including deployment of military ships and planes, waiving rules on fuel blends to ease gasoline shortages and releasing oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

What exactly does that mean? Is there an ulterior motive behind this decision?

It caught my eye, and I thought maybe someone here on ATS could shed some light on the subject.

[edit on 31-8-2005 by WyrdeOne]

I know the Governor of MI was asking for this to happen last night.

Right now, urban areas such as LA, Chicago New York and Detroit have special formulas. If I remember, these formulas are determined by the EPA and have something to do with the existing air quality for each metropolitan area. Go 100 miles outside this area, and the agas won't need the extra agents in the gas.

This is one fo the reasons for higher gas prices. All these different recipes for different areas and I guess they are mandated and not interchangeable. Apparently there is 110 varieties of gasoline in this country
washingtontimes.com...

Apparently there is 110 varieties of gasoline in this country

And more are being created, additives right now do add to the cost of gasoline but they make the Gas burn much cleaner. Nano-Catalyst's can theoretically be very cheap and make a good catalyst. This price shock could be a very good thing indeed, it will force people to adapt and in turn that will change the economy and hopefully steer it away from Oil dependancy. It's just insane to have a infrastructure setup with so much fragility built into the system! More unstable then a tripod...

It's a trade off: lower costs by waving specialized fuel blends will bring prices down such as for food, gas, etc, but also the pollution caused illnesses will increase. Asthmatics will especially be vulnerable.

I would say Bushco is thinking purely from a profit and economic stand point.

Biodiesel fuel revving up
New plant to double capacity
www.fortwayne.com...