On Nov. 28, 1973, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Russell E. Train announced the final regulations to protect public health by reducing the amount of lead in all grades of gasoline. The EPA was established by President Richard Nixon on Dec. 2, 1970.

According to EPA, a significant portion of the urban population, particularly children were over-exposed to lead through a combination of sources including food, water, air, leaded paint, and dust. The total amount of lead used in gasoline amounted to well over 200,000 tons a year.

The new lead limits prescribed by EPA today are based on “total pool averaging,” a method which allows refiners to average lead usage over all grades of gasoline produced, including the unleaded grade.

On January 10, 1973, EPA required the general availability of one grade of unleaded gas by July 1, 1974, in order to protect the catalytic converters which will appear on many new cars in 1975. Lead in gasoline may cause disintegration of the converters, which control auto air pollution emissions.

Also on January 10, EPA re-proposed annual reductions of the lead content in all other grades of gasoline in order to protect public health. The re-proposal, based on a pool averaging of only the leaded grades of gasoline, phased out lead content to 1.25 gpg by January 1, 1978.

Today’s final regulations reflect a change from the re-proposed averaging of leaded grades to an average of both leaded and unleaded. This change in computation methods required EPA to revise downward the grams per gallon limits, although the actual average amount of lead per gallon of gas reaching the consumer will be the same as re-proposed on January 10–a 60 to 65 percent reduction from present levels.

EPA said the low-lead regulations in 1980 would increase total crude oil usage by only .4 percent, thereby having a minimal impact on the energy shortage.