By Brooke Coleman
Renewable Energy Action Project
To those familiar with our current state of government in Washington, D.C., it should come as no surprise that Congress is putting the finishing touches on a federal energy bill rife with taxpayer-funded handouts to the oil, coal, gas and nuclear industries. What is shocking is that this year's energy proposal reaches new lows.
The final version of the bill contains a national solution to the MTBE problem. MTBE is the carcinogenic gasoline additive that has polluted drinking water in dozens of states with cleanup costs exceeding $29 billion. The general consensus in the Senate is that MTBE use should be eliminated and U.S.-produced ethanol, made from crops, should be promoted to take its place.
But the small group of federal lawmakers assigned to finalizing the energy bill had other plans. They stripped the bill of the MTBE ban at the behest of the petrochemical industry and offered an accelerated ethanol package to keep lawmakers from ethanol states from crying foul.
This type of deal making, although repugnant to the interests of the general public, is nothing new. But then our lawmakers further amended the bill to shield the MTBE industry from liability for contaminating the country's drinking water.
MTBE producers had been trying to weasel liability protection into the bill for some time. It was a truly galling request that would foist cleanup costs on local communities and send a disturbing message to future polluters. It would also short-circuit a jury finding that the oil and MTBE industries acted "with malice" in using a chemical they knew could poison water supplies.
The ruling had put legal pressure on these industries to stop using the chemical and provide financing to local communities to clean it up. Until recently, it appeared that lawmakers were not willing to pardon the MTBE industry.
But a group of oil-state legislators, led by Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas, have carried this insidious torch to New Mexico Sen. Pete Domenici, the Republican who co-chairs the committee in charge of finalizing the energy bill. After some initial resistance, the senator succumbed to DeLay's agenda.
DeLay has told dumbfounded water suppliers, mayors and governors from several states that liability protection is staying in the final bill, and Domenici thinks he has the votes to silence any Senate filibuster against him.
MTBE producers are gleefully awaiting this golden parachute....
It is one thing to perpetuate the corporate welfare problem or cut political deals to reach Congressional consensus, but quite another to protect polluting industries from the courts and make local governments pay for their negligence. Even politicians with a previously undisturbed sense of conservatism like Domenici are quietly cutting deals that impose corrupted federal priorities upon struggling state governments and municipalities.
Domenici's support for an MTBE liability shield leaves citizens and towns without recourse to recover damages for one of the most serious and preventable environmental disasters in decades.
In an age of rampant corporate corruption and irresponsibility, many of our most outspoken representatives are ignoring the public's cry for corporate accountability.
A September 2003 Zogby poll found that by an 86 percent-8 percent margin, voters say that oil and petrochemical companies should be held responsible for paying to clean up MTBE pollution.
Are Domenici and the rest of Congress even listening?
Brooke Coleman is director of the Renewable Energy Action Project, a national coalition of environmental groups and renewable energy producers.
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