energy independence!! by shielding foreign makers of MTBE and..huh..wait...

[Guest guest]

Saudi-owned company set to profit from proposed MTBE liability shield

 

OK, kids, follow the bouncing red ball: The Republican energy bill, pending in

the Senate, is advertised as a way to gain independence from Saudi Arabian oil

(boing!). Part of the energy bill, included at the insistence of Texas Rep. Tom

DeLay ®, is a provision shielding makers of groundwater-polluting, potentially

cancer-causing gas additive MTBE from liability lawsuits, despite projected

costs of $8 billion to $29 billion to clean up MTBE contamination (boing!). One

of the major companies that produces MTBE and would benefit from the liability

shield is SABIC -- which has spent some $1.5 million lobbying for it and happens

to have a big research and technology center in Sugar Land, Texas, DeLay's home

base (boing!). SABIC is largely owned by the Saudi government (boi... wait,

wha?). " The standard sound bite we've been getting for the last five years is

that [the energy bill] will reduce our dependence on foreign oil, " says Keith

Ashdown of the nonpartisan Taxpayers for Common Sense. " Now it's about how to

subsidize foreign oil regimes. " Boing!

 

 

straight to the source: The Boston Globe, Susan Milligan, 16 May

 

Those who control the past, control the future; Those who control the future,

control the present; Those who control the present, control the past.^