FRom the Merc News
First, Feinstein, and now Arnold
Governor asks feds to waive gas additive requirement
Chuck Carroll
Mercury News
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has asked the Bush administration to waive a gasoline additive requirement that California officials believes will cause a huge and wasteful increase in prices at the pump while impeding the state's air pollution efforts.
Under current federal law aimed at curbing smog, the state must add an ``oxygenate'' to gasoline. But in 1999, California banned the oxygenate methyl tertiary-butyl ether, or MTBE, because it was polluting drinking ground water across the state. The primary additive besides MTBE available to meet the federal requirement is ethanol, which is made from corn.
Corn Belt states, where ethanol is primarily made, have lobbied hard against California's attempt to get the Clinton and Bush administrations to grant it a waiver.
Billions of dollars are at stake, pitting California consumers against Midwest agribusiness.
Schwarzenegger's appeal to federal Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael O. Levitt, expressed in a letter sent Wednesday, puts the Republican governor in a fight started under Democratic Gov. Gray Davis.
Gasoline with MTBE can no longer be sold in California after March and has already stopped being produced here.
Some oil industry analysts expect prices to start climbing very soon as long as the federal additive requirement remains in force.
I do believe there are several proposals for ethanol plants around Calif...