Providing for Consideration of H.R. 6, Energy Policy Act of 2005

PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF H.R. 6, ENERGY POLICY ACT OF 2005 -- (House of Representatives - April 20, 2005)

Ms. MATSUI. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts for yielding me this time.

I rise in opposition to this rule and to the underlying bill. The Republican majority has brought to the Floor a bill that subsidizes the past at the expense of the future, and we should not vote for it.

I am particularly troubled about the amnesty this bill gives to MTBE polluters and the effect it has on my home State of California. In 1990, the oil industry began adding MTBE to gasoline in order to make it burn cleaner. The industry knew that MTBE was a harsh groundwater pollutant and had safe alternatives at its fingertips. But the industry used MTBE anyway. 25 years later, over 18,000 water systems in 29 States are infected with MTBE, including three wells in my home district of Sacramento.

Making our drinking water clean will cost an estimated $29 billion nationwide. I think polluters should pay that bill. Our cities and towns agree. Not surprisingly, however, the Texas-based MTBE manufacturers think they deserve a bailout. So they went to their friends in Washington, and the Republican majority gave them a blanket amnesty for cleaning up their pollution. It is unbelievable and our constituents should be horrified.

Mr. Speaker, we should be investing in renewables and conservation. We should be strengthening our natural security by reducing our dependence on foreign oil. We should be doing a lot of things today. Protecting guilty polluters is not one of them.

I urge my colleagues to defeat this rule and the underlying bill.

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