The manufacturers and the EPA defrauded the public because that is what environmental regulation largely is: the use of government regulation to make a secure and ill-gotten buck. EPA knew as early as 1981 that MTBE was a threat to groundwater. When ADM first proposed ethanol as an oxygenate, the oil companies (primarily ARCO Chemical (now Lyondell), largely owned by the British royal family) brough forward MTBE in order to keep market share. The oil and gas legal racketeering arm, the Natural Resources Defense Council was the only NGO present at the EPA hearings, at which a former (and later to be) NRDC attorney (and now Arnold confidante) Mary Nichols figured prominently. The Schwarzenegger administration is even more rife with these creeps than was Davis.
MTBE was a criminal scam from the start. We shouldn't be talking liability, we should be talking jail time.
Did the manufacturers lobby the EPA for the mandate, saying MTBE was a cure-all?
Yes indeed.
Or did the bulk of the MTBE problems occur prior to the EPA mandate?
No. The oil companies have admitted under oath that it was their idea. Interestingly, they also demanded and received indemnification for liability associated with oxygenates in the amendments to the Clean Air Act in 1991, signed by our "Environmental President" George Herbert Walker Bush. Why would they make such a demand if they knew it was safe?
For more information on this history, read this post.
ADM is a buch of crooks. They are trying to force everyone in the country to have to use ethanol mixed into their gasoline. Ethanol is rather expensive. Yes anyone with a knowledge of organic chemistry and hydro-geology could explain why MTBE would be a problem if it got into ground water.
You should read my previous post #8. The regulation requiring the use of oxygenates was unnecessary. I oppose inflexible rule based enviromental regulations on principle. Regulators are more interested in compliance with rules than actually reducing pollution. Instead of requiring expensive oxygenates added to fuel to reduce unburned hydrocarbons primarily from old cars, it would have been cheaper to create incentives to get old cars off the road. That's why Senator Feinstein wants to waive the rule for California. Even if oxygenates are required, I oppose the government telling me it has to be ethanol (which is expensive has lots of environmental costs associated with its manufacture, and was mandated for purely pork barrel political reasons). I also oppose the government reneging on previous commitments. The government specifically exempted refining companies from liability so the government should be liable.