Temporary blackout on energy giveaway

This week, the Senate pulled the plug on the energy bill. It was too obvious that the only entity being made secure was Big Oil. This was a case where the Republicans could not restrain themselves from creating a public relations disaster. Vice President Dick Cheney's Kremlinesque energy task force, the clandestine meetings of the Republican leadership, and the opportunism of a few ethanolic Corn Belt Democrats put too much of a load on even the well-wired Capitol Hill power grid. Zzzzt. Blackout.

The temporary outage was caused by the fact that the $31 billion bill contained $24 billion in tax breaks for oil, coal, gas, and nuclear power interests. The bill would repeal the 1935 Public Utility Holding Company Act, which was designed to restrict mergers to protect consumers from price gouging and fraud. It would relax Clean Air Act rules to control big-city smog.

It would shield polluters. The bill would, for instance, cancel existing lawsuits and prevent future legal action against the makers of the gasoline additive and suspected carcinogen MTBE. MTBE, methyl tertiary-butyl ether, was originally meant to reduce air pollution from cars. But it dissolves easily in water, and contamination from leaking underground tanks has afflicted nearly 30 states.

It is not clear how much MTBE is too much for human health, but concern in Maine and New Hampshire runs deep enough that all four Republican senators, Maine's Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins and New Hampshire's John Sununu and Judd Gregg, bucked their party and voted to block passage of the energy bill.

Aside from California, northern New England has led the way in putting its fears of MTBE on paper. Four years ago, Snowe cosponsored a bill by California Democrat Diane Feinstein to fight the use of additives like MTBE. This fall, New Hampshire became the first state in the nation to sue the oil and chemical industry for using MTBE. Environmental groups say the nationwide cleanup could cost up to $29 billion.

New Hampshire Attorney General Peter Heed called MTBE the "Houdini of pollutants," because it is so easy to get into groundwater, but so hard to remove. Heed said "New Hampshire's groundwater and surface water are under attack" from an "unprecedented environmental problem." Heed said the state is suing because the oil and chemical companies "knew years ago" that MTBE would contaminate water supplies.

The fight over MTBE is symbolic of the larger fight of who controls the energy debate. It is well known that Big Oil is currently a very Republican special interest. That makes New Hampshire particularly special since it has an all-Republican congressional delegation. The suit names the leading makers of MTBE, Lyondell and Valero Energy, along with most of the top companies of Big Oil, such as Exxon Mobil, Chevron Texaco, Sunoco, and El Paso Energy.

In the 2000 elections, oil and gas companies gave $27 million to Republican candidates and $7 million to Democrats. Energy companies gave $2.9 million to Republican George W. Bush, compared to $342,000 for Al Gore. Spencer Abraham, then a senator from Michigan and now the energy secretary, received more contributions from the energy industry than Gore, $444,998.

DeLay's concern about plugs being pulled was far less about blackouts than his own campaign coffers. He has led the fight in Congress to shield MTBE from lawsuits. It is no surprise. Since 1999, Lyondell and Valero have given DeLay over $40,000, according to statistics from the Center for Responsive Politics. In a story this week in the Washington Post, Lyondell has also given to Domenici and the top House energy bill negotiator, Republican Billy Tauzin of Louisiana.

Lyondell's political action committee, according to the Post, has spent nearly $3 million in lobbying in 2002 and 2003. Valero and Koch Industries, another MTBE producer, have each given DeLay $5,000 this year.

Those dollars will ensure that the lights will flicker back on soon in this debate. The MTBE industry will stay plugged in even if its chemicals prove to be as toxic as the substances reminiscent of the famous Woburn case. The energy bill was blocked for now. With politicians like DeLay and Domenici on the take, Americans should be highly concerned that they can still be the victims of a political blackout, with not just energy, but perhaps human lives at stake.

Derrick Z. Jackson's e-mail address is jackson@globe.com.