mr. speaker , i thank the gentleman from massachusetts for raising this point of order . 
i believe that it goes right to the heart of the problem with the mtbe provisions in this bill . 
they pass on huge costly problems to other parties . 
in this case , h.r. 6 would shift the costs of cleaning up mtbe groundwater contamination on to the towns , the cities , and the water districts around this country . 
in other words , it would shift these cleanup costs from the oil companies responsible for the mess to our constituents , who have to live with the mess . 
mr. speaker , mtbe has caused damage to the groundwater across our nation . 
it is found in 1 , 861 different water systems , 29 different states , serving 45 million people . 
cleanup costs are estimated at around 29 , maybe $ 30 billion . 
i might point out to my colleagues that there are about $ 2 billion in the lust fund , and it is to cover all kinds of leakage , not just mtbe . 
this is a huge problem , and it is not going away . 
it is the fault of the mtbe industry , and they should have to fix it . 
mr. speaker , the mtbe industry says it was forced to put mtbe in gasoline by the clean air act amendments of 1990 . 
there is no mtbe mandate in that law . 
even the chairman of the committee on energy and commerce has acknowledged that . 
industry representatives have testified before congress that mtbe has been widely used since 1979 . 
this is an arco circular from around the 1980s urging refiners to add mtbe . 
by the time of the 1990 clean air amendments , the industry had already added 120 million barrels of mtbe to gasoline . 
even more damning are the documents unearthed in recent court cases proving conclusively that the industry knew as early as the 1980s about the dangers mtbe posed to groundwater . 
it still went on adding it to gasoline . 
the special protection for mtbe manufacturers is in this bill because they are finally being taken to task for the damages they knowingly caused . 
recent court cases regarding responsibility for mtbe groundwater contamination have come down on the side of local water companies and cities . 
these cases have forced manufacturers to pay to clean up or replace mtbe-contaminated water supplies . 
the most celebrated has been the $ 60 million settlement for south lake tahoe and the nearly $ 400 million for santa monica . 
in my district , the tiny little coastal town of cambria had one of its two drinking water sources permanently damaged by mtbe . 
after it sued , cambria was able to get chevron to pay a $ 9 million settlement to help the town to build a desalinization plant ; but under this bill , the taxpayers of cambria , and of hundreds of towns , large and small , across this country would be forced to pay for the mtbe cleanup on their own . 
mr. speaker , the gentleman from massachusetts ( mr. mcgovern ) xz4002630 is right to raise this point of order . 
we should support the point of order and take this terrible provision out , which is going to force our constituents to shoulder the burden of cleanup on to the constituents . 
