Testimony on HB 960 and Other Bills Regarding MTBE

Before the House Environmental Matters Committee

February 16, 2005

Richard D. Norling

Maryland Chapter, The Sierra Club

Chairwoman McIntosh and members of the committee, I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today on behalf of the Maryland Chapter of the Sierra Club, and to express our support of HB 960, which would require removal of the additive MTBE from Maryland’s gasoline supplies by October 1, 2006.

We prefer HB 960 over other similar bills for three main reasons:

1. The Whereas clauses in the preamble of HB 960 clearly describe the MTBE-related problems that require urgent legislative action, and will help defend the statute if it is challenged in court;

2. HB 960 includes in its prohibitions the other ether compounds that could be used to replace MTBE in gasoline; and

3. HB 960 will remove MTBE from our gasoline more quickly than the other bills that are before you today.

Methyl tertiary butyl ether is a highly invasive chemical. Most other components of gasoline tend to float on top of water and do not mix with water readily. MTBE has small molecules and mixes with water aggressively, spreading quickly throughout any body of water with which it makes contact. To make matters worse, MTBE turns to vapor readily. On a rainy day like we had on Monday, MTBE vapor in the air attaches to water droplets and rides back down to the surface, where it may pollute water far removed from the location where it originally leaked. MTBE degrades extremely slowly in subsurface water, and cleanup efforts are both time-consuming and costly.

The Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) acknowledged the dangerous nature of MTBE when it recently promulgated stricter regulations on underground storage tanks. The improvement in the regulations is good and may prevent a few leaks. But the changes apply to only a few counties, do not apply to a very large number of existing gasoline storage tanks, and do nothing to reduce the likelihood of gasoline spills during transport or vehicular accidents. As long as MTBE is in gasoline, there will be leaks and spills, and MTBE will escape into the environment to pollute drinking water.

Seventeen states have already acted to remove MTBE from gasoline, including California and New York. Minnesota also banned the other two ether compounds that would be prohibited by HB 960. Those other ether compounds are chemically similar to MTBE, are just as likely to be invasive, but have been studied much less. We simply do not know whether those chemicals are any safer than MTBE, and they could be more dangerous. Since they have not been shown to be safe, the wisest course is to make sure they are not added to our gasoline.

The Sierra Club has believed for several years that improvements in engine design and gasoline refining have resulted in cars that burn gasoline more completely, making the Federal law requiring oxygenates in gasoline no longer necessary. The U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation in 2003 that would have repealed the oxygenate requirement, but the bill did not become law because of controversy over other provisions.

So as often happens, state legislatures are ahead of the Congress in enacting new policies that make sense. If Maryland and other states join the 17 states that have already acted to remove MTBE from gasoline, perhaps that will help push the Congress to do the job nationally.

If you believe the eighteen months between legislative action and October 1, 2006 are not enough time for industry to prepare to deliver gasoline that does not contain MTBE, then I urge you to set a definite deadline no later than the October 1, 2008 date proposed in HB 205. The sooner we can end the possibility of this persistent pollutant leaking into our drinking water, the better off we will be.