MTBE (methyl tert- butyl ether) is a fuel additive that began appearing in gasoline in the mid 1990's. It drastically reduces emissions without compromising vehicle performance. As you might suspect, California led the way on its use. Sounds great, right?
Well, there's no free lunch, and I'll tell you why below the fold.
Underground storage tanks (UST's) are notoriously leaky, even with new regulations and improved technology. In fact, Phase II Environmental Site Assessments (ESA's) are somewhat of a cottage industry now, with much of their prominence being due to leaking UST's. The gasoline getting into the soil and groundwater is bad enough, but the additives can be downright worrisome.
As it turns out, very low concentrations (such as those found in groundwater) of MTBE are not necessarily that bad for you (if you believe the EPA, which is another post altogether). The problem, though, is taste and smell. At concentrations as low as a few parts per billion (ppb) of MTBE to clean water, your water will taste like gasoline -- even though it is "safe" and the pollutant concentrations fall below EPA cleanup levels.
OK, so the water is theoretically safe, but nobody wants to drink it. So the argument can be made that the public welfare has been impacted and the water should be cleaned up, even if not mandated by law. Yet another problem -- this stuff is excruciatingly difficult to remove from water. It certainly can't be scrubbed out using the typical methods of your local water treatment plant.
What do we do? Remove it from gasoline and increase emissions? Make the hyper-wealthy oil companies pay to clean it up? Pass legislation that gives oil companies immunity from prosecution for the spills and, thus, ensures that they will never have to clean them up?
I'll bet you'll never guess what the Republicans wanted to do....that's right -- give oil companies immunity and pay for the cleanups with federal money (assuming that they ever actually cleaned it up). One guess as to who was the driving force behind this provision in the energy bill -- right again, Tom "Mr. Morals" Delay.
Well, in a small ray of hope, it appears that there has been a compromise on the Hill and this clause is being stripped from the energy bill -- oil companies will have to clean up their own messes. See the USA Today for more details on the compromise. Let's hear it for small victories!
On a side note, I don't pay as much attention to him as I did when I was living in NM, but I think that Pete Domenici is one of the "good guys" on the other side of the aisle.