Cities Win Fight Over MTBE Provisions in the Energy Bill

[Dover]

WASHINGTON, July 29 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The National League of Cities (NLC) applauds today's action by Congress to adopt an Energy bill that rejected offending language that would have imposed a multi-billion dollar unfunded mandate on local governments by preventing municipalities from suing the producers of the gas additive, Methyl Tertiary Butyl Ether (MTBE), a major contaminate of drinking water. NLC successfully lobbied for new language that preserves the ability of cities to bring their legal suits in state court and while permitting MTBE producers to request that their cases be heard in federal court.

"NLC and its coalition partners applaud the efforts of a bipartisan group of House and Senate leaders who rejected this onerous proposal," said NLC President Anthony A. Williams, mayor of Washington, DC. "Cities will continue to have the ability to recoup the clean-up costs directly from the polluters."

The action is a major victory for taxpayers and for the National League of Cities, which worked fiercely on behalf of cities and towns across America to protect their rights to seek damages for the clean up of drinking water sources polluted by MTBE -- costs estimated in the range of $25 to $85 billion. During the past two years, NLC opposed numerous efforts by the House to limit the liability of MTBE producers -- efforts that would have ultimately passed along billions of dollars in clean- up costs to the taxpayers. MTBE has been known to contaminate large quantities of surface and ground water through leaking underground storage tanks and pipelines to ground and surface water. More than 28 states have detected MTBE contamination in their water supply with the most extensive contaminations found in California, New England and the Mid-Atlantic states....>>

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