The California Environmental Policy Council, has unanimously approved reports that give ethanol a clean bill of health when used as an oxygenate in California's cleaner burning gasoline program. The Council, chaired by California Environmental Protection Agency Secretary Winston Hickox, was established by Governor Davis' Executive Order which phased out MTBE use and required environmental fate and health analyses of ethanol. The California Air Resources Board and State Water Resources Control Board studied the environmental fate and transport of ethanol in air, surface water, and groundwater, concluding that "any catastrophic or even major release of MTBE to surface water is far more likely to represent a potential public-health problem than a similar release of ethanol."
The California EPA Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment reviewed ethanol's impact on air quality, and dismissed ethanol's impact on the formation of acetaldehyde. "Other components of gasoline, such as aromatic compounds and olefins, are primarily responsible for the formation of formaldehyde and acetaldehyde due to both their greater abundance and their shorter atmospheric lifetimes," the report concludes.
