Grassley said the fact that the Iowa Department of Natural Resources found exceptionally high levels of the petroleum-based gasoline additive MTBE in Iowa's water supply is "astounding" because petroleum marketers and the Iowa Department of Agriculture say that MTBE is currently not used or sold in the state of Iowa.
Based on the findings released today, Grassley today called on Iowa Ag Secretary Patty Judge to independently verify this claim and immediately enforce the Iowa law that requires MTBE warning labels. Grassley said this will "empower Iowans with necessary information to make a pro-environmental, educated choice to protect our water supply by refusing to buy gasoline with MTBE."
Grassley said today's report is also "very important to rural workers and farmers across the country because it exposes the bogus argument made by the oil industry" in the current dispute over the contamination of water in California.
The governor of California has asked the EPA to waive California from requirements in the Clean Air Act of 1990 that gasoline be reformulated with oxygenates. Grassley and other farm state senators worked to include the oxygenate requirement during debate on the clean air legislation. They wanted to improve air quality and open a new market for corn-based ethanol, a clean-burning alternative to fossil fuels.
However, during the process of putting together the regulations, the oil industry successfully lobbied the Clinton administration to assure that MTBE monopolized the market. "The high-powered oil industry didn't want to lose control of the market. At its insistence, EPA in 1993 tossed aside the pro-ethanol regulation that had been proposed by former President Bush and gave the green light to the oil companies," Grassley said.
In letters delivered today to President Clinton and Vice President Gore, Grassley wrote that the Iowa DNR report "puts to rest, once and for all, the simplistic, false notion that by allowing states to waive out of the Clean Air Act's reformulated fuel oxygenate requirement, America's MTBE water contamination problems will disappear."
Every year, almost 500 million gallons of MTBE is sold and marketed in conventional fuel sold outside the areas of the country that sell reformulated gasoline. Therefore, Grassley said that "mere oxygenate waivers from the Clean Air Act will not protect the rest of America's water supply. To grant such a waiver would perpetuate a hoax that will leave the rest of the public vulnerable to MTBE water contamination."
Grassley and other congressional leaders have petitioned the EPA to recognize the environmental and public health benefits of the oxygenate standard. "Getting rid of the oxygenate standard does nothing more than let big oil companies continue to contaminate America's water supply," Grassley said. Earlier this month, Grassley and 41 other members of Congress asked the President to meet with them on this urgent matter.
Grassley said that the answer to this problem rests in the resolution offered by California Senator Barbara Boxer and passed last summer by the U.S. Senate which calls for banning MTBE and replacing it with ethanol.