HARRISBURG, PA — Legislation that would ban the gasoline additive methyl tertiary-butyl ether (MTBE) is headed to the Pennsylvania state Senate after being passed by a unanimous vote in the House.
Lawmakers in the state House voted 196-0 on Monday, 19 November, to approve the plan to ban the sale or distribution of MTBE in the state starting in January 2005, reported The Morning Call newspaper in Allentown, PA.
The bill is expected to meet resistance in the Senate, the newspaper said, but its sponsor, state Rep. Robert W. Godshall's, R-Montgomery, said he hopes the chamber will move quickly to approve the legislation.
MTBE is one of two fuel additives, or oxygenates, that are mixed with gasoline to make it burn cleaner. It's required by the Clean Air Act in areas with bad smog problems, but has been labeled a polluter of water supplies across the country. A study released last year by the US Geological Survey and the Oregon Graduate Institute's Department of Environmental Study said about one-third of drinking water wells in 31 states might be contaminated with MTBE. And according to the US Environmental Protection Agency, MTBE is also a suspected carcinogen.
In Bucks County, PA, private wells serving residences have been contaminated by MTBE, The Morning Call reported. Two of the region's state lawmakers, state Sen. Joe Conti, a Republican from Doylestown, and Rep. Charles T. McIlhinney Jr., a Republican from Plumstead, have both lobbied hard for relief.
McIlhinney called the House vote a huge victory for the state's environment, the newspaper said.
John Hanger, a spokesman for the environmental group PennFuture, said the legislation is a good start, and that state officials should seriously consider using the corn-based additive known as ethanol, the newspaper reported.
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