Environmentally Incorrect.

LATIN AMERICAN OIL COMPANIES HAVE LONG BEEN criticized for environmental abuses. Now they're getting hit in the United States as well.

The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), a New York-based not-for-profit group that pushes ecological awareness, recently released the results of a study on refineries in the United States and how much they pollute. Texas was named the worst polluting state in the country in terms of toxic emissions, with seven refineries ranking in the bottom 20%. Two of the seven are owned in part by Latin American oil companies: Petroleos de Venezuela (Pdvsa) and Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex).

Lyondell Citgo Refining is part owned by Pdvsa's U.S. unit, Citgo, and the Shell Deer Park Refining is a 50/50 joint venture between Pemex and Houston-based Shell Oil. Both Houston refineries ranked poorly in three of five different categories: releases, transfers and benzene, a toxic carcinogen.

Both were critical of the report. Anne Knisely, a spokesperson for Lyondell Citgo, says the EDF based the study on 1997 numbers and unclear methodology. Dennis Winkler, a spokesperson for Shell Deer Park, claims the data the environmental group used is inaccurate. The most glaring error: Taking the toxic releases from its adjacent chemicals and lubricants plants and assigning them to the refinery. "If they had looked just at the refinery, it would have taken us from the worst 20% to the top 50%," he says.

That doesn't come as much reassurance to Houstonians, whose home surpassed Los Angeles last fall as the most polluted city in the United States.