From Alaska to Oklahoma, oil-producing states are scrambling to plug holes blown in their budgets by tumbling crude prices. U.S. refiners who are delaying compliance with new cleaner gasoline production rules could face soaring costs beginning next year as they scramble to find deadline-extending fuel credits in a tight market, industry experts warn. Larger U.S. refiners are in the midst of a multi-billion dollar effort to cut smog-producing sulfur levels in the gasoline pool by Jan. 1, but those efforts have been met by objections to what the rules mean for refinery emissions and slowed by the high price of compliance. U.S. President Barack Obama has made cutting harmful tailpipe emissions a cornerstone of his environmental policy, both domestically and abroad, arguing that higher sulfur levels in gasoline drive up health care […]