Congress Quarrels over MTBE

Environmentalists pushed for gasoline additives in California and now, the additive manufacturers are pushing back in Congress:

The Environmental Working Group, a research and policy organization, thought Rep. John Doolittle, R-Roseville, might want to rethink his support for immunizing MTBE producers now that there are pending lawsuits in the Sacramento area over damage caused by the leaking gasoline additive.

But as the House took up energy legislation Wednesday that includes the controversial MTBE provision, Doolittle made clear that he is not about to hold manufacturers liable for the damage that now may include three wells in his hometown of Roseville.

Instead, Doolittle blasted the Environmental Working Group as a "band of ultra-leftists" and accused environmental organizations more broadly of causing the problem in the first place. He said they pressured Congress in 1990 to require gasoline manufacturers to produce cleaner-burning fuel using the additive.

"I don't deny it's a problem," Doolittle said of MTBE. "But when the government rushes in at the behest of these eco-Marxists, we should send the bill to the Sierra Club and all of them that have done so much to harm the environment."