mtbe
1990, the federal Clean Air Act was passed to improve air quality in the United States. President Bush's proposed amendments to the Clean Air Act initially would have led to the introduction of alternative, non-petroleum fuels. The petroleum and oxygenate industries responded by offering a reformulated gasoline program as a substitute for most of the alternate fuel proposals. As a result, the amendments to the federal Clean Air Act adopted in 1990 required steps to achieve lower vehicle emissions, including programs to oxygenate and reformulate gasoline. Oxygenated gasoline is designed to increase the combustion efficiency of gasoline, thereby reducing carbon monoxide emissions. Since January 1995, the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments require areas that have the most severe ozone pollution to use reformulated gasoline containing fuel oxygenates to improve air quality. Methyl Tertiary Butyl Ether is one of the most commonly used fuel oxygenates because it is produced in very large amounts from isobutylene, a waste product in the refining process. MTBE can be easily produced at the refinery, at a low cost, and can be transferred through existing pipelines once it has been blended with gasoline. In contrast to other gasoli
In 1997, the California Legislature addressed several issues surrounding MTBE. Four bills passed the Legislature and were signed by Governor Wilson. These bills included SB 521, which paid University of California to determine the risks and benefits of MTBE to human health and the environment, and required the governor to take appropriate action once these determinations were made about the safety of MTBE. SB 1189 required the Department of Health Services to set primary and secondary standards for drinking water, and require public notification if contamination occurs. AB 592 required several actions related to the contamination and clean up of groundwater by MTBE, and the funds to reimburse owners of contaminated drinking sources. AB 1491 prohibited delivery of gasoline to any underground fuel storage tank not in compliance with state and federal standards after January 1, 1999. As a result, Governor Gray Davis ordered MTBE to be banned in California by December 2002. Although it was known that MTBE was a menace in the 1980's, the petroleum and oxygenate industries knew that MTBE was the only hope of achieving the requirements of the Clean Air Act. Non-petroleum fuels are the future of this planet, yet these companies are stubbornly resisting to accept the fate of our future. There are no studies of effects on humans of long term exposure to MTBE. Studies used to determine the hazards have been done with laboratory animals, which creates many limitations and uncertainty. Animal tests performed in 1997 were not conducted by exposing animals to MTBE in drinking water, but rather by introducing oil containing MTBE directly into their stomachs several times a week. The Environmental Protection Agency determined, "although useful for identifying potential hazards, limitations of the reported studies do not allow confident estimates of the degree of risk MTBE may pose to humans from low-level drinking water contamination." Most studies have i
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1332
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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