Fill 'Er Up With Gas Lite

If necessity is the mother of invention, the threat of regulation is often its father. Faced with growing government pressure for cleaner automotive fuel, Atlantic Richfield last week became the first U.S. oil company to introduce an unleaded gasoline designed to run effectively in older vehicles that were built to use leaded fuel. The Los Angeles-based company said the new brand, Emission Control-1, will eliminate up to 15% of the pollution caused by cars built before 1975 and trucks from before 1980. While such vehicles represent only 15% of the Los Angeles area's cars and trucks, they produce nearly one-third of its automotive air pollution. When EC-1 goes on sale next month at 700 Arco stations across Southern California, the company said, it will be priced the same as leaded fuel, though the new gas costs a few cents more a gallon to produce.

The arrival of the new gasoline was well timed. Hours after EC-1's debut, the California Air Resources Board unanimously approved a sweeping 20-year plan to clean up Southern California's atmosphere. President Bush put additional pressure on oil companies in June, when he unveiled an antipollution proposal that included a switch to cleaner automotive fuels, including natural gas and methanol, in smog-choked parts of the country.

Arco attributed its discovery to improved refinery techniques and advanced computer data bases that enabled chemists to experiment with formulas for the new gasoline. Besides containing no lead, the new Arco fuel has 50% less benzene, a major source of smog, and 80% less sulfur. "We could not have done this five years ago," a company spokesman contended. "You have to have a good data base."

While Atlantic Richfield has no immediate plans to market the new gasoline outside Southern California, other oil companies seem likely to develop their own lead-free products. The industry may have little choice if gasoline is to keep pace with U.S. demands for increasingly stringent air-quality standards.