WASHINGTON—Congressional negotiators are likely to give oil companies and the makers of gasoline additives protection from lawsuits involving polluted drinking supplies that serve an estimated 100 million Americans, officials for the water utility industry said.
A sweeping energy bill passed by the House last year includes a "safe harbor" provision for manufacturers of methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE), a gasoline additive that has polluted water supplies around the country. The provision includes immunity from claims that the additive is "defective in design or manufacture."
The Senate version of the bill doesn't include the provision, but it appears likely that key Republican lawmakers currently ironing out differences between the two bills will include the safe harbor provision, said Tom Curtis, deputy director of the American Water Works Association, which represents public and private water suppliers.
"Unfortunately, this is the kind of issue where money speaks very loudly and the special interests who support this provision have hijacked the people's interest," Curtis said.
The provision has been a lobbying priority for oil companies and the makers of MTBE. Estimates on the cost of cleaning up groundwater polluted with MTBE range as high as $30 billion.
MTBE is an oxygenate that makes gasoline burn cleaner, reducing air pollution. Beginning in the early 1990s, EPA required some smog-prone metropolitan areas - particularly in California and on the East Coast - to require the sale of gasoline blended with an oxygenate.
The agency did not specify that the additive had to be MTBE.
However, MTBE quickly became the oil companies' oxygenate of choice. They argue that they should be protected from lawsuits because the government knew that MTBE was going to be widely used.
"It's clearly not a defective product because the air is cleaner where it's used, which is what it is intended to do," said Frank Maisano, a spokesman for the Oxygenated Fuels Association, which represents MTBE manufacturers.
The Environmental Protection Agency lists MTBE as a potential human carcinogen since it has been shown to cause cancer in laboratory animals. However, the biggest problem with the fuel additive is its extraordinarily foul taste and smell, which can render water supplies undrinkable even when present in minute amounts.
The provision protecting MTBE manufacturers is opposed by state and local officials who say it would seriously undermine efforts to clean up groundwater and surface water.
"By granting manufacturers immunity for the problems caused by MTBE, Congress is turning its back on environmental protection and public health," said Kathleen McGinty, head of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.
A nationwide study released in July by the U.S. Geological Survey found MTBE in 86 percent of wells sampled in industrial areas, 31 percent sampled in commercial areas, 23 percent in residential areas and 23 percent in areas of mixed urban land use, parks and recreational areas.
The energy bill also includes provision that would gradually phase-out MTBE use nationwide. At the behest of the ethanol industry, and over the objections of local officials and water companies, the bill also extends the safe harbor provision to include ethanol, an oxygenate that is expected to replace MTBE in many parts of the country.
source: http://www.abqtrib.com/shns/story.cfm?pk=ENERGY-MTBE-09-17-03&cat=FF 18sep03
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