Protecting polluters

Makers of a widely used gasoline additive knew for more than a decade that their product posed a significant risk to drinking water sources. Yet they continued to promote and sell the product known as MTBE. Now, with water suppliers across the country facing huge MTBE cleanup costs, Congress is trying to protect . . . guess who? Not the public, but the makers of MTBE.

Republican leaders, including Rep. Tom DeLay of Texas, where most of the additive is manufactured, are trying to include a provision in the broad energy bill that would prohibit lawsuits against the MTBE industry over their defective product. It is another case of Congress' catering to an influential special interest rather than taking care of a broader public need.

The stakes are high, with the overall cost of cleanup estimated in the tens of billions of dollars. Santa Barbara, Calif., lost 70 percent of its local water supply to MTBE pollution, which at even low levels makes water undrinkable and at high levels is a suspected carcinogen. Lake Tahoe communities had one-third of their drinking water tainted with the additive. Both of those water authorities sued and won settlements. In the Tahoe case, a company official testified that in the 1980s the industry knew MTBE posed a significant risk to drinking water yet failed to warn the public. It is such suits that Congress wants to forbid.

MTBE pollution usually comes from leaking storage tanks or pipelines. It has been a problem in Florida, as well, with at least 10 water suppliers reporting detection of MTBE over the past six years. One of those is the Dunedin water system, which found traces of the additive in one of its wells on three occasions in 1998. (City water officials said the trace amounts of MTBE were removed before water was supplied to customers.)

More water suppliers have filed suit recently, trying to beat congressional action to grant immunity to MTBE makers. One of those is New Hampshire, the first state to sue over the pollutant, which has been found in 15 percent of the state's public water supplies. It could be too late, however, because some members of Congress have threatened to make the prohibition against MTBE suits retroactive.

The very integrity of the energy bill is in question because of this "safe harbor" provision for makers of a major pollutant, and the resulting controversy threatens to delay passage. If that happens, it means some in Congress find it more important to protect an undeserving special interest than to resolve the nation's most important energy issues.

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