In a
letter to Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Browner, several members
of the Illinois congressional delegation expressed their opposition to the
Panel's recommendation to lift the 2.0 wt. percent oxygen requirement in
reformulated gasoline. "While the Panel confirmed our long-held beliefs that
MTBE poses a risk to groundwater and to the health and safety of the American
public, we think the suggestion that ethanol cannot provide an adequate supply
of fuel for reformulated gasoline markets is inaccurate," they wrote. "U.S.
Department of Agriculture and industry data demonstrates that adequate supplies
of ethanol would exist to meet the oxygen requirement in a cost effective manner
with a gradual phase out of MTBE."
