http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A43720-2004Feb15?language=printer

washingtonpost.com

AP: How the White House Shelved MTBE Ban


By PETE YOST
The Associated Press
Sunday, February 15, 2004; 12:57 PM


WASHINGTON - The Bush administration quietly shelved a proposal to ban a
gasoline additive that contaminates drinking water in many communities,
helping an industry that has donated more than $1 million Republicans.

The Environmental Protection Agency's decision had its origin in the
early days of President Bush's tenure when his administration decided
not to move ahead with a Clinton-era regulatory effort to ban the
clean-air additive MBTE.

It said the environmental harm of the additive leaching into ground
water overshadowed its beneficial effects to the air.

The Bush administration decided to leave the issue to Congress, where it
has bogged down over a proposal to shield the industry from some
lawsuits. That initiative is being led by House Majority Leader Tom
DeLay, R-Texas.

The Associated Press obtained a draft of the proposed regulation that
former President Clinton's EPA sent to the White House on its last full
day in office in January 2001.

It said: "The use of MTBE as an additive in gasoline presents an
unreasonable risk to the environment."

The EPA document went on to say that "low levels of MTBE can render
drinking water supplies unpotable due to its offensive taste and odor,"
and the additive should be phased out over four years.

"Unlike other components of gasoline, MTBE dissolves and spreads readily
in the ground water ... resists biodegradation and is more difficult and
costly to remove."

People say MTBE-contaminated water tastes like turpentine.

In Santa Monica, Calif., the oil industry will pay hundreds of millions
of dollars because the additive contaminated the city's water supply.

"We're the poster child for MTBE, and it could take decades to clean
this up," said Joseph Lawrence, the assistant city attorney.

In 2000, the MTBE industry's lobbying group told the Clinton
administration that limiting MTBE's use by regulation "would inflict
grave economic harm on member companies."

Three MTBE producers account for half the additive's daily output.

The three contributed $338,000 to George W. Bush's presidential
campaign, the Republican Party and Republican congressional candidates
in 1999 and 2000, twice what they gave Democrats, according to the
Center for Responsive Politics. Since then, the three producers have
given just over $1 million to Republicans.

The producers are Texas-based Lyondell Chemical and Valero Energy and
the Huntsman companies of Salt Lake City.

"This is a classic case of the Bush administration helping its campaign
contributor friends at the expense of public health," said Frank
O'Donnell, executive director of the Clean Air Trust, a Washington-based
environmental group.

Huntsman spokesman Don Olsen, echoing comments by other MTBE producers,
said, "We were not a huge campaign contributor and this has absolutely
nothing to do with campaign donations. It has to do with good public
policy."

The industry says it has become a victim in a Washington power struggle.

"Because of MTBE there has been a marked improvement in air quality and
reduction in toxics in the air," Olsen said. "Because of leaking
underground storage tanks in some relatively few instances, MTBE found
its way into places it shouldn't be. But that has nothing to do with the
product, which has done exactly what it was designed to do."

Said Valero Energy spokeswoman Mary Rose Brown: "It would have been
impossible to fulfill the requirements of the Clean Air Act without
MTBE."

A daily Washington newsletter disclosed the existence of the draft rule
shortly after Bush's inauguration; outside the industry, few people
noticed.

At the direction of White House chief of staff Andrew Card and Mitch
Daniels, then the White House's budget director, all government agencies
withdrew their pre-Inauguration Day draft regulations.

The EPA withdrew agency rules, including the MTBE one, in mid-February
2001, White House budget office spokesman Chad Kolton said.

In subsequent months, agencies rewrote many Clinton-era regulatory
proposals and went public with them. The proposed MTBE regulation,
however, never surfaced.

"As legislation looked more promising in 2002 and 2003, we focused our
energies on supporting language in the Senate's energy bill," Jeffrey
Holmstead, the EPA's assistant administrator for air quality, said in a
statement Friday.

"We have not ruled out the possibility of seeking a solution" by
regulation, Holmstead said.

The EPA favors a phaseout of MTBE through legislation. But the
legislation has stalled and it no longer calls for a ban in four years.

On their own, 17 states banned the additive and dozens of communities
are suing the oil industry.

"Nobody's talking about the trial lawyers campaign contributions to
their supporters in Congress and its the trial lawyers who are the force
behind these unjustified lawsuits," said Brown of Valero Energy.

To regulate MTBE, the EPA would have to use the Toxic Substances Control
Act, which the agency considers cumbersome and unwieldy.

MTBE industry representative Scott Segal said, "It took EPA a decade to
develop enough data to justify issuing a regulation for asbestos" under
the law. "Even then, the courts still blocked it."

Bob Perciasepe, an EPA official during the Clinton administration, said
a regulatory approach would have provided "a pressure point" to pass
legislation.

Georgetown University law professor Lisa Heinzerling said regulating
MTBE would be difficult, but "if we can't use the Toxic Substances
Control Act to regulate MTBE, which has contaminated water supplies all
over the country, then what can you use it for?"

---

On the Net:

Documents excerpts available at: http://wid.ap.org/mtbe.pdf