Environmentalists Mandate MTBE Gasoline Additive Then Ban

FOOLS RUSH IN
See New York Times July 27, 1999 article by Matthew L. Wald Agency Will Ask Congress To Drop Gasoline Additive

■ “The Environmental Protection Agency will propose that Congress no longer require oil companies to add an ingredient to gasoline that is meant to make the air cleaner, because it pollutes water.”
■ [EPA Administrator] “Ms. Browner, whose [EPA] agency in the past has defended M.T.B.E. mandates to critics who said it posed health problems, said she would urge Congress to change rules passed in 1990 requiring oil companies to put an ''oxygenate'' in gasoline. Oxygenates, chemicals that incorporate an oxygen atom, promote more thorough burning in engines. Most oil companies chose the oxygenate known as M.T.B.E., for methyl tertiary butyl ether.”
■ “the panel report estimates that in places where oxygenates are used, 5 to 10 percent of drinking-water supplies show detectable amounts of M.T.B.E.”
■ “The environmental agency considers M.T.B.E. to be a possible carcinogen because it has been shown to cause cancer in animals.”
■ “When oxygenates were first required, in 1990, proponents said that putting oxygen into the liquid fuel would insure that engines produced more carbon dioxide, less carbon monoxide.”