New York's Department of Environmental Conservation asked the Environmental Protection Agency last week for the waiver that would take effect Jan. 1, 2004.

Approval of the waiver is unlikely, as the EPA denied a similar request from California. Also, the Bush administration is pushing for more use of ethanol - which is made from corn - a move favored in farm states.

Ironically, New York is asking EPA for a waiver of federal clean gasoline rules at the same time it is suing the agency for not doing enough to stop Midwest power plants from spewing polluting emissions across state lines into the Northeast.

EPA had no immediate comment on New York's request, and New York's environmental office could not be reached for comment.

Federal law requires major metropolitan areas with the worst ozone air pollution to use gasoline that that contains at least 2 percent oxygen by weight. The extra oxygen makes the gasoline burn more cleanly.

Most refiners blend either MTBE - short for methyl tertiary butyl ether - or ethanol into gasoline to meet the oxygenate requirement.

New York told EPA it opposed MTBE because it has been found to leak from underground storage tanks and contaminate drinking supplies with a bad taste and odor. Many states have banned it.

New York also told the agency that using ethanol as a replacement for MTBE would produce gasoline that had a higher evaporation rate, which would put more polluting emissions into the air.

In addition, the state said it was difficult to transport ethanol in the near term from the Midwest, where the fuel additive is made, because it can't be transported by pipeline to the Northeast.

The ethanol would have to transported by truck, barge or rail.

New York said that 960 million gallons (22.9 million barrels) of ethanol a year would be needed in the Northeast, which would require 34,000 miles of barge travel and 3 million miles of tanker truck travel.