EPA should be doing its part to unclog those fuel clogs

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: With gas prices what they are, this is probably not what folks wanted to hear right now.
Recent reports by the auto industry are pointing to a disturbing nationwide decline in fuel quality, which may be contributing to a growing number of clogged fuel injectors and other engine problems that motorists have to repair at their own expense.
One of those studies shows rampant violations of a federal requirement that all gasoline contain a minimum level of a detergent to keep fuel injectors and intake valves free of deposits. About half the gasoline sampled from pumps nationally did not contain the required levels of detergent, Pete Misangyi, a fuels expert with the Ford Motor Co., told Journal Sentinel reporter Raquel Rutledge.
The study cited by Misangyi focused on Florida, where cars made by General Motors and Honda have experienced a rising number of clogged fuel injectors.
Some brands of gas, Misangyi said, contain an adequate amount of detergent to prevent possible engine problems, but other brands come up short. If that's the case, the petroleum industry and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency must work quickly to correct the problem.
Minimum too low
An official with the Shell Oil Co. told Rutledge that Shell has long believed that the minimum detergent standard set by EPA is too low. All Shell fuels, the official said, contain at least double what the EPA requires for detergents.
The director of engineering for the Association of International Automobile Manufacturers says the problem stems from variations in fuel around the country, including the reformulated gas required by the EPA in the Milwaukee and Chicago areas. He thinks the ultimate answer is to update the EPA standard, particularly since cars have changed so much since the current standard took effect in 1995 and because there now are so many different kinds of fuel distributed in the nation.
An official with the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, which tests fuel quality in 26 cities nationwide twice every year, says the EPA simply needs to do a better job of enforcing the existing regulation.
Meanwhile, an EPA official says the agency has no plans now to revise the standard. And the American Petroleum Institute also sees no reason to alter the standard.
But when automakers and even some people in the petroleum industry suggest that the EPA needs to alter and update its standards on fuel to protect engines, why is the EPA not looking at this?
The EPA has a responsibility, of course, to protect the environment, but it also has a responsibility in this case to protect the consumer.