Gasoline in the metro Denver area is about to get a lot more expensive come June 1 — as much as 51 cents to $1 more per gallon, depending on who is asked.

And Gov. Jared Polis said that threatens Colorado’s fuel supply and might result in “shortages at the pump.”

Motorists in what’s called the Denver Metro/North Front Range Ozone Non-Attainment Area face the more expensive gas after the Environmental Protection Agency a few years ago downgraded the region to “severe,” which triggered a requirement to use what’s called reformulated gasoline this summer.

When the EPA was considering the downgrade, the agency said the reformulated gasoline would only add about 3 cents per gallon. Experts in the field said it would be 10 to 20 or more times as much as the EPA suggested.

In a press briefing with the Denver Gazette editorial board on Thursday, Polis criticized the EPA.

“Oh, they’re awful,” said Polis. “Yes, we’re fighting them on many fronts, but particularly now, with several ex

clamation points, this insane requirement for this reformulated gas.”

Two years ago, Polis called it “frustrating” that the federal law governing clean air standards attempts to impose a “decades-old, one-size-fits-all approach” that “does not accurately account for Colorado’s unique situation.”

Last month, Polis sent the EPA a letter asking for an extension, citing another request for an extension he had sent the agency in September 2022.

“The bold actions Colorado has taken, and continues to take, to reduce emissions from the transportation sector and move away from fossil fuels have negated any potential emissions or environmental benefit from the costly and harmful RFG mandate,” the governor said in the April 4 letter. “RFG requirements threaten Colorado’s fuel supply, will raise prices, and may result in shortages at the pump.”

Polis told the EPA that, because Colorado has only one gasoline refinery — the Suncor refinery in Commerce City, which provides about 40% of Colorado’s gasoline — it might be necessary to truck in reformulated gasoline in large amounts from other refineries.

That would increase the amount of pollution from the tanker trucks and people driving more to get out of the non-attainment area for cheaper gas, which could all negate any benefits from using reformulated gasoline, he said.

“We have gas stations in our state — I think right near Loveland is another area — that (are) not in the non-attainment,” Polis said during the briefing with the editorial board on Thursday. “If there’s that big a delta on gas prices, everybody’s just going to drive a few extra miles, which makes our area even worse and adds to traffic because gas will be cheaper in certain locations.”

Those areas could offer gas that is 40 to 50 cents cheaper, he said.

Colorado has no direct pipeline connections to facilities that make reformulated gasoline.

The governor said he hopes the EPA could still change its mind.

“They neither granted nor denied our waiver request, so they kept it pending,” Polis said. “It’s certainly better than denying it. We were hopeful they would actually approve it. But what that means is they’re going to be monitoring our supply situation and if some of the modeling we did bears out and there are shortages, they would then quickly be able to act on our waiver presumably.”

“And we’ll continue to push for that,” he said.

Shortly after his election in 2019, Polis sent a letter asking the EPA to withdraw Colorado’s request for an extension time to meet the Clean Air Act ozone standards in order to see if the measures already taken would bring the state into compliance, something the EPA has the power to do.

Polis’ predecessor in the governor’s office, now U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper, had sought the extension.

In rescinding Hickenlooper’s request, Polis said it was of “vital importance” to meet the ozone standard as quickly as possible.

In that letter, Polis wrote, “We believe that the interests of our citizens are best served by moving aggressively forward and without delay in our efforts to reduce ground level ozone concentrations in the Denver Metro/North Front Range non-attainment area.”

In a May 2022 letter to Polis, roughly two dozen Colorado business leaders pleaded with the governor to ask the EPA to extend the compliance deadline, even as the federal agency’s machinery ground its way toward an ozone downgrade that would trigger the gasoline mandate.

They didn’t want residents of the state’s most populous region paying for what some described as the “California blend” of gasoline that would hurt consumers and companies alike, they said.

After his rescinding of Hickenlooper’s extension request and the public outcry at the potential costs of reformulated gas and after the EPA downgraded the non-attainment area to severe, Polis reversed course and said that he would do everything possible to avoid the RFG mandate, including filing a lawsuit against the EPA.

The reformulated gasoline was mandated by the EPA for use during the summer to cut down on ozone that builds up along the northern Front Range, as stagnant air loaded with organic chemicals that cause ozone backs up against the mountains and pools in the Denver Basin.

When exposed to sunlight, volatile organic chemicals emitted by both motor vehicles and oil and gas operations get cooked into ozone, which is harmful to people’s health.

Critics said a majority of the problems in the Denver Basin are not the fault of residents, but rather, they come from uncontrollable natural, out-of-state and even international sources, and that ozone level violations usually occur in specific areas affecting fewer than half of the region’s 16 ozone monitors.

Referring to a part of the Clean Air Act that allows non-attainment areas to get a waiver for violating the standards because of circumstances beyond the state’s control, like last year’s dense smoke from forest fires in Canada, Polis could have also requested a waiver, they said.

“Most of our ozone — 60% is naturally occurring — blows in from other states and countries, or is caused by wildfires. Colorado could have gotten relief from these emissions that are outside our control, but the governor chose not to ask for that,” said Rich Coolidge, director of public affairs for the Colorado Oil & Gas Association in an August 2022 interview with The Denver Gazette.

Polis’ office last year informed the Denver Gazette that the governor would not be seeking a waiver for forest fires.

The state Regional Air Quality Council, the lead air quality planning agency for the Denver metropolitan area and the Denver Metro/North Front Range Ozone Non-Attainment Area, acknowledged the problem of imported and natural ozone-creating chemicals.

“We essentially assume that we have control of about 25% to 30% of the ozone in our region,” said Mike Silverstein, RAQC’s executive director, during an online press briefing in July 2021. “And that’s what we’re responsible for developing strategies for control.”

The region — comprising eight counties including Jefferson, Boulder, Larimer, Denver, Douglas, Arapahoe, Adams and Weld that have had seasonal problems with ozone levels for decades — was declared a “non-attainment” region in 1978, when ozone levels exceeded 120 parts per billion, the 1978 EPA national ambient air quality standard.