MTBE

FYI -- This will hit the news later today or tomorrow....

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Clinton administration has decided to phase out MTBE as
a gasoline additive on grounds it poses a risk to public health or the
environment, government sources said today.

MTBE, a leading oxygenate and octane booster, reduces emissions of smog, but
it has been linked to groundwater pollution in California and elsewhere. It
is used in one-third of
the gasoline sold in the United States.

Carol Browner, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, was
announcing this afternoon that her agency will seek to "significantly reduce
or eliminate" use of MTBEs
under the Toxic Substance Control Act. That law allows EPA to ban chemicals
"deemed to pose an unreasonable risk to the public or the environment," said
a government official who
spoke on condition of anonymity.

The agency also will ask Congress for changes in the Clean Air Act that will
encourage use of ethanol, an additive from corn, in place of MTBE, according
to a congressional source. The 1990 law requires the use of oxygenates in
gasoline.

The EPA previously has said it has no authority to regulate MTBE, and
Congress should act to limit its use in light of evidence the additive is
contaminating groundwater. MTBE is used in all or part of 16 states, and is
in much of the gasoline sold in the Northeast. Refiners turned to the
additive after the Clean Air Act required gasoline in areas with serious air
pollution to contain at least 2 percent oxygen by weight.

Last summer, an EPA advisory panel said that while current levels of MTBE in
water pose no health risk, its use should be dramatically curtailed because
of potential widespread water
pollution problems. MTBE has been found to be a carcinogen and poses health
and environmental risks, other critics of the additive have said.

The sources said the EPA action was a "backstop measure" because Congress had
not acted to eliminate use of MTBE, or methyl tertiary butyl ether.

California, which has more leeway than other states to regulate air
pollution, has already decided to ban the use of MTBE by the end of 2002.
State officials have asked the EPA for
a waiver from the Clean Air Act's oxygenate requirements so that the state
doesn't have to switch to ethanol, which is more expensive than MTBE.

A coalition of Northeast states said last year said that low levels of MTBE
were found in 15 percent of the drinking water tested in the Northeast, in
most cases in amounts less than 2 parts per billion. Water begins to pose a
health concern and tastes or smells bad at 30 to 70 parts per billion; about
1 percent of water supplies tested in the Northeast had concentrations above
35 parts per billion.

APTV-03-20-00 1109EST