MANY if not most Americans are unfamiliar with a compound known as MTBE, but taxpayers could be on the hook for $25 billion to $85 billion in cleanup costs if Congress insists on protecting oil companies from liability for polluting the nation's public water supplies.
MTBE is an acronym for methyl tertiary butyl ether, a gasoline additive that, ironically, allows engines to burn with less air pollution. The substance, a suspected carcinogen, has been detected in public water in all 50 states, primarily as a result of leaking underground storage tanks.
A provision to give petroleum producers immunity from lawsuits related to MTBE is perhaps the prime issue of dispute in the energy bill passed by the House and pending in the Senate. President Bush says he wants a comprehensive energy bill on his desk by Aug. 1, but disagreement over MTBE liability stalled a similar bill in 2003.
Big Oil wants to avoid lawsuits of the type that have forced the tobacco and asbestos industries to pay out billions of dollars in damages.
A coalition of the folks responsible for operating public water supplies takes the opposite and, in our view, more reasonable position: "Local governments, water consumers, and local taxpayers did not cause the MTBE contamination problem, and they should not be expected to pay for it."
They believe that the oil companies, now enjoying record profits, should foot the bill.Unfortunately, a business-friendly Congress has retreated headlong from the principle that the "polluter pays" when it comes to environmental cleanups. Just look at the billions of dollars in taxpayers funds that have been used to cleanse thousands of contaminated brownfields sites around the country. Many more sites aren't being cleaned up because Congress won't appropriate sufficient money.
Among the oil companies' most powerful cheerleaders for MTBE liability are House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and Rep. Joe Barton, House energy chairman, both of Texas. They favor allowing industry to come up with a pool of funds that states could use for cleanup, which the American Petroleum Institute estimates at less than $1.5 billion.
The industry figure, however, refers only to the cost of getting rid of leaking storage tanks, not to cleaning up tainted wells if indeed cleanup is possible.
President Bush and his GOP acolytes on Capitol Hill want the energy bill signed into law because it mainly consists of a host of tax breaks for Big Oil. But in the view of many expert observers, the legislation would do little to accomplish its stated purpose: helping to break our shameful dependence on foreign oil.
That's why Congress should not be stampeded into passing the energy bill, especially if it includes immunity from MTBE lawsuits. That would help the oil companies but would do nothing to protect the public from this dangerous pollutant.
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