| In 1999, California Gov. Gray Davis banned gasoline with MTBE. A few months later, Methanex invoked Chapter 11, demanding either that California's ban be lifted or that US taxpayers give the company $970 million in economic damages.
That said, a NAFTA proceeding is absolutely the worst way to handle such a situation. No U.S. company can use NAFTA courts to seek damages for any MTBE plants they built. Why should foreign-owned and situated companies have an advantage? |
You couldn't be more wrong.
"The people" did NOT want "this stuff" added to our gasoline..."The people" were there at the Capitol (as was I) protesting the MTBE additive BEFORE it was rammed down our throats, but REPUBLICAN GOVERNOR PETE WILSON went against the will of the people and in favor of the oil companies and your so called "private investors" (no surprise there) and put it in our gas anyway.
Not sure it was entirely the legislature, Nick. IIRC, California was under Federal pressure via the AQMD to get oxygenates into the gasoline to reduce the amount of carbon monoxide produced. MTBE was the big cure-all.
Then it was found in our groundwater up and down the state, and it turns out to be a nasty carcinogen. We got hosed by the clean air nazis, and we have a law (Proposition 65) that says we've got to get the MTBE out of the water.
Hard to do if it's still in the gasoline.
It is probably true that governments, and their taxpayers, ought to get whacked when they jerk around private companies the way they did with MTBE. I don't know what a scale plant costs to produce that stuff, but I'm sure it's in the tens of millions of dollars. When "the people" (read: the legislature) wanted this stuff added to the gasoline, private investors were there to build plants to make it. Now, a few years later, "the people" want to say, "Oops, never mind"? That is not real cool.