Barbara Boxer: “I hope I will be able to support it because what we are trying to make sure of is that in the new fuels program, this…”

“I hope I will be able to support it because what we are trying to make sure of is that in the new fuels program, this bill, we do not lose any ground in terms of the Clean Air Act so we still are able to give EPA important authority under the Clean Air Act to mitigate any adverse air quality impacts that might result from the increased use of renewable fuels. What we learned when we dealt with MTBE, which was an additive in gasoline, was we were not prepared for any adverse impacts from MTBE. We thought it was going to be the answer. As you know, MTBE permeated the water supplies in many States. We thought it was going to clean up the air and, guess what, it did. But it created havoc with our water quality. We want to make sure--we worked hard on this--that in this new fuels program, we do not backslide and that we are able to have all the protections we need. So at first, we fixed the water problem and now this is fixing the air quality problem. What we do is, we give EPA authority under the Clean Air Act to consider impact on water quality when regulating fuel.”