Posted on 06/15/2005 9:36:34 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
SACRAMENTO – Staring at potential payouts in the billions of dollars, the U.S. oil industry is maneuvering to escape responsibility for cleaning up after MTBE, the now-banned toxic gasoline additive that has seeped into drinking water across the country.
If the campaign is successful, critics say taxpayers will be forced to pick up the unpaid bill.
Oil producers have attached so much importance to immunity from liability that the issue has taken a place right alongside opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and tax breaks as Congress crafts a broad new energy policy.
The House has already approved legislation sponsored by a powerful Texas Republican, Rep. Joe Barton, that would deliver what the industry wants, brushing aside protests from California water officials, Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Democratic Attorney General Bill Lockyer.
However, the U.S. Senate is widely expected to withstand industry pressure as it takes up its own energy bill this week, shifting the showdown to a conference committee later this summer.
That could set the stage for a possible repeat of 2003 when an energy bill collapsed, partially over an impasse involving MTBE.
California officials contend that a vital source of funding to clean up groundwater contamination could vanish if the industry avoids liability.
"Any such provision would seriously undermine efforts to protect precious groundwater and surface water sources from the harmful effects of MTBE contamination and unfairly shift cleanup costs to taxpayers," Lockyer said in a letter of opposition.
Oil interests counter that it's not fair to punish them for complying with a 1990 congressional order to blend a smog-fighting additive into gasoline as part of amendments to the Clean Air Act. The industry chose to use Methyl Tertiary Butyl Ether, or MTBE.
"This is, above all, an issue of fairness," Red Cavaney, president of the American Petroleum Institute, told a House committee in February.
"Any industry that acts as mandated by the federal government to meet a societal need – in this case, cleaner air and improved health – should not be victimized for doing what the government required it to do," he said.
A federal shield would make it much more difficult for water agencies to collect, but not impossible.
No figures are available nationally, but the opposing parties have tossed around wildly disparate cleanup estimates that range from $2 billion to $29 billion.
Most MTBE-related claims are based on defective-product liability law, which allows agencies to go after the producers of MTBE. If the industry is awarded immunity, communities may be armed only with difficult-to-prove negligence standards that would limit their targets to companies that own gas stations or independents, water agencies contend.
"I haven't heard of anyone who thinks the mom and pop gas stations will come up with millions to clean up this mess," said Dave Reynolds, who monitors MTBE issues for a coalition of California water agencies.
But with the additive no longer on the market, the threat to public health may be contained, according to Dave Spath, California's drinking water chief.
"The situation has stabilized . . . It has not reached as many drinking water sources as we once feared," Spath said. "That doesn't mean there isn't a lot of cleanup to be done."
In 2000, MTBE was detected at levels high enough to be a threat to health in 31 California counties, including five locations in San Diego County, according to the Department of Health Services.
"It's not a big local issue," said Ken Weinberg, director of water Resources for the San Diego County Water Authority.
Yet the authority opposes immunity for the industry because "it's not a good policy to exempt polluters from liability," Weinberg said.
Several California entities have filed legal claims against various producers, which prompted Republican leaders in the House to insert a retroactive enforcement date that could extinguish many cases.
Those seeking redress in court in include: Fresno, Riverside, Roseville, the Quincy Community Services district, California Water Services Co., the California-American Water Co. and a coalition of Sacramento-based agencies.
Under pressure to clear the skies, Congress had ordered oil producers to blend an oxygenate with gasoline to make gas burn cleaner. But, in a key decision at the heart of the latest controversy, Congress didn't mandate which oxygenate. By all accounts, the oil industry selected MTBE because it was readily available and cheaper than the limited supplies of ethanol or other alternatives.
"It was the oil companies that decided exactly what they were going to use," insisted Alan Lloyd, head of the California Environmental Protection Agency. By virtue of that decision, the industry should be held accountable for the pollution, Lloyd said.
The dangers of MTBE first came to light on a large scale in the Lake Tahoe and Santa Monica cases, which involved dozens of drinking water wells that had to be shut down. A coalition of water officials and environmentalists launched a nationwide crusade against MTBE. In California, then-Gov. Gray Davis banned the additive starting in 2004. Many other states soon followed. The pending federal legislation would ban the additive starting in 2015.
Oil interests say the only way to meet demands for cleaner-burning fuel at the time was to use MTBE.
"Congress knew MTBE was going to be used in huge volumes. Congress was fully aware of the potential problems," said Frank Maisano, an energy industry lobbyist.
The House has already approved legislation sponsored by a powerful Texas Republican, Rep. Joe Barton, that would deliver what the industry wants, brushing aside protests from California water officials, Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Democratic Attorney General Bill Lockyer.
However, the U.S. Senate is widely expected to withstand industry pressure as it takes up its own energy bill this week, shifting the showdown to a conference committee later this summer.
That could set the stage for a possible repeat of 2003 when an energy bill collapsed, partially over an impasse involving MTBE.
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Someday, there will be an energy bill.. someday, maybe..
The individuals who approved this additive, should be held responsible not the oil companies or the tax payer.
Didn't the government make them use MTBE.
I think the best thing would be government subsidizing the purchase of a tap water filter for it. Clanups just hurt the landscape more, devalue property and scare of business usually for the sins of an inventor long since bankrupted. (If only those in government charged with testing it could be charged for not being more thourough...)
Bush has to get out there and pitch this energy bill. It's a slam dunk if he makes it an issue and blames the RATS for doing nothing while gasoline is at $2.25 a gallon and predicted to go to $3.00 and stay there. If Bush can't sell the energy bill he should climb in a hole and hide for the rest of his term.
The "individuals" are the democrats that ran the house and senate and Clinton who signed the MTBE law into effect in 1990. The oil companies were forced by them to add it to their fuel. The DNC should pay for it.
Ten years before it's banned? It should be banned immediately because of the potential ramifications. Our nation's health is at risk, and they propose we have 10 more years of groundwater pollution. What could this government be thinking?
If this precedent stands, private industry can now be held financially liable for damages real or perceived due to practices imposed on it by legislation. Bill Wattenberg on KGO San Francisco has been on the MTBE scam for years.
Not 100% sure, but if I recall there is a contract we signed with Canada to provide the MTBE. 2015 may be when that contract expires.
Waiting till then, contract or not, is ludicrous. It should have been banned in 2000. I also remember KSFO's Melanie Morgan was instrumental in reporting and updating the public about the disasterous effects of MTBE.
How could it get into groundwater unless the underground gas tanks were leaking? Just because mom and pop gas stations don't have deep pockets, they want to sue the maker. Anyway, most gas stations are owned by oil companies and could afford to pay, if negligent.
Hmm, the health effects of beryllium are not so great either, at least in certain forms. Aerospace workers of the 50's and 60's suffered greatly with berylliosis, a chronic and incurable lung disease caused by inhaling beryllium dust. I'd want ironclad assurances this other compound wouldn't do the same thing.
-ccm
Make the Sierra Club pay for it, they lobbied for the additive to be put in the gasoline...
Make the Sierra Club pay for it, they lobbied for the additive to be put in the gasoline...
The EPA, Cal EPA, CARB genius ecoscientists actually designed the MTBE molecule and designed it specifically so that it could be made by chemical companies as opposed to agricultural interests (ethanol). MTBE is a synthetic not natural occurring alcohol molecule, it never existed in nature before it was constructed by ecoscientists. It would be the alcohol equivalent of the Andromeda Strain. (The idiocy amazes even me.)
MTBE was mandated by law in Kalifornia, and ethanol (good ole' corn) was forbidden. All to reward those that cooperated with the ecothugs.
Finally neither MTBE or ethanol is necessary for clean burning gasoline, it can be refined directly from the crude with modern technology, so it was all a hoax for profit.
The oil companies were aware of the potential danger, but they only followed orders. DemoRat-envirothug government employees ordered it into the gasoline and signed the NAFTA deal with Canada to supply it. A deal we can't break trade barriers, you know.
Fat chance! That would be a then-Democrat Congress and the EPA bureaucracy -- both of them unaccountable institutions.
And that's the crime of it! The damn stuff doesn't reduce emissions -- instead, it reduced mileage by about 15% while adding about 15 cents to the cost of a gallon of gasoline.
On top of which, it's a pollutant itself. That would mean we are, literally, screwed three ways from Sunday.
As I recall from the beginning when KSFO personalities help lead the opposition to using MTBE it was said that MTBE was made from refinery waste, or by-products.
The dangers of MTBE first came to light on a large scale in the Lake Tahoe and Santa Monica cases, which involved dozens of drinking water wells that had to be shut down.
Wrong! The dangers first came to light at KSFO's "Can you hear us now!" rallies at the capitol building before MTBE was used to attack the health and well-being of citizens of California. The Cal-EPA, the various air resources boards, political hacks, oil company execs, and lots more should be in prison awaiting execution.
A coalition of water officials and environmentalists launched a nationwide crusade against MTBE. Sure. Years after right wingers led the way.
As I recall from those days, the Republican Wilson administration arranged to give billions to the refineries to speed the MTBE additive process. The money was taken from funds ear-marked for low-income home buyers.
Wilson would never appear on KSFO and it was reported that he claimed at the time that he had never heard of MTBE. Mrs. Wilson got a great board of directors job with ARCO shortly after Mister left office. I believe ARCO had a lot to do with making and selling MTBE.
"Willie! Willie Sutton, why do you serve the public?"
"Because that's where the money is."
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