MTBE

energy bill 2003 tauzin, delay domenici, ethanol, mod gop got anwr out in return for new power plants and hummer 100K tax break, protected delay biggest donor lyondell chem from mtbe suits and keep on mkt max p 113 "oinking mastodon"   heritage and cato! did not pass, big defeat b2, but redone next yr str t ignor

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rfk2:

ch 8

dascle held energy bill 18 mos till gop got both houses in 1/2003  Delay and

energy comm chair Billy Tauzin passed, but know it cd not pass, so bait

and switched: passed dem bill then rewrote it w/o dems 145, just energy lobby

;released the bill Sat night, 3 days to review 1200 pages 147 damage env and add

to debt (100B tax breaks McC: no lobbyist left behind"  for Hooters and Polluters.

Halib tax break to frack ; worst bill for envir in 25 yrs (back to newt Reg reform")

More for oil, more ghg. ethanol subsid peeled off demos, incl daschle and harkin;

DC and lobbists worked hard; even WSJ deplored pork for votes 149

House passed Domenici onmibus? bill [same as energy bill?], but sen filibuster.

WSJ "cornucopia of special interst payoffs" 151 some gop sununu held out, big debt

and MTBE outrage (delay, tauzin and barton)"Major Threat to Better Earnings' etc

shell jokes; used b/c lobby tho more $ than ethanol 155 cost to clean cd be $29-46

billion, co try to dodge .

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gangs of america;

In response, MetalClad sought

compensation for $90 million under the provisions of NAFTA, alleging

that its national treatment rights had been violated and that the action of

the Mexican government constituted a regulatory taking. In August

2000, the tribunal awarded Metalclad $16.7 million, which was paid by

the Mexican government.

In a similar case, Methanex Corporation, a Canadian producer of

methanol used to manufacture the gasoline additive MTBE, sued the

United States government under NAFTA for $970 million after California

governor Gray Davis, with the backing of the California legislature,

ordered the phasing out of the additive. Davis’s action followed the discovery

that MTBE, an additive that smells like turpentine and creates a

foul taste in drinking water, had turned up in Shasta Lake, drinking

wells in the Lake Tahoe basin, 30 public water systems, and 3,500

groundwater sites. In addition, a study by the University of California

had revealed MTBE to be carcinogenic in rats and mice. On its web site

Methanex stoutly defended its case against the United States, asserting

that far from any adverse health effects, “pure MTBE has been successfully

and extensively used as a medicine to treat gallstones in humans.”

Often the mere threat of a NAFTA lawsuit is sufficient to produce

the necessary effect.

...

A chemical called MTBE, a type of binding arbitration known as a

NAFTA tribunal, and a treaty provision known as Section 11all these

dauntingly obscure, esoteric, and technical particulars would seem to be

an unlikely foundation on which to base an international mass movement.

Nevertheless, by the mid 1990s, activists around the world had

become aware of the corporate rights provisions of NAFTA and were

determined to prevent such rights from being implemented on a global

scale. Thus, when news of a proposed new agreement known as the

Multilateral Agreement on Investments (MAI), which had been negotiated

in secret for two years, was leaked to the public in 1997, a network

was in place allowing citizen groups to mobilize quickly in response.

The provisions of the proposed MAI were breathtaking in scope.

Its protections for corporate investments were similar to those of

NAFTA, only now they would apply on a global scale. Foreign corporations

would be able to directly sue national governments in closed arbitration

courts, demanding compensation for environmental or other laws

that had the “effect of taking” corporate assets.

The secrecy of the MAI negotiations and the dramatic nature of its

terms evoked protests around the world from hundreds of labor, environmental,

human rights, consumer, development, and other groups.

Over 565 organizations in over 70 countries sponsored a statement urging

the suspension of the MAI negotiations. In a major victory for this

far-flung opposition, the European Parliament voted 437 to 8 on March

GLOBAL RULE 231

9, 1998 in favor of a resolution opposing the agreement. A month later,

the MAI was removed from the agenda of the Organization for Economic

Cooperation and Development

It was a stunning victory for the ad hoc coalition that had mobilize

to stop the agreement, as well as an indication of the depth of opposition

to the extension of corporate rights into the global arena. The international

uprising against the MAI stands as the first example of the aggregate

organizing power of worldwide “civil society” in the age of the

Internet. Moreover, it marked the crossing of a threshold was crossed.

Whereas past movements had focused on particular problems associated

with multinational corporations, the new one focused on the corporate

power itself—specifically, the international institutions and trade

agreements that leveraged corporate power while undermining democracy.