Renewable Fuels and MTBE: Side-by-Side Comparison of House and Senate Energy Bills and the Conference Report on H.R. 6

Publication Date: March 2004

Publisher: Library of Congress. Congressional Research Service

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This report compares the energy bill (H.R. 6) conference report provisions dealing with ethanol and with the gasoline additive methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE) to the House and Senate versions of the same legislation, as well as a substitute bill offered in the Senate (S. 2095). The House passed its version of H.R. 6 April 11, 2003; the Senate, July 31. The conference committee approved its version November 17; the House agreed to the conference report November 18. On February 12, 2004, S. 2095 was introduced in the Senate. Except for one provision, S. 2095 and the H.R. 6 conference report titles on renewable fuels and MTBE are identical.

All three versions of H.R. 6, as well as S. 2095, would repeal the existing Clean Air Act requirement that reformulated gasoline (RFG) contain at least 2% oxygen, a requirement that led refiners and importers to use MTBE, and to a lesser extent ethanol, in their RFG. In place of this requirement, all versions would provide a major new stimulus for the use of ethanol a provision that the annual production of motor fuels contain at least 5 billion gallons of renewable fuel (more than double the current production of ethanol) in roughly 10 years. In addition, the bills contain similar provisions that: require that the reductions in emissions of toxic substances achieved by RFG be maintained; authorize grants to assist merchant MTBE production facilities in converting to the production of other fuel additives (although the conference report and S. 2095 provide nearly triple the amount provided by either the House or Senate versions of H.R. 6); authorize loan guarantees for the construction of facilities to produce ethanol from municipal solid waste; and allow ethanol credit trading among refiners and importers of fuels.

Major issues the bills handle differently include: whether to ban MTBE (the Senate bill would have done so within 4 years, with some exceptions, while the conference report and S. 2095 allow 11 years and give the President authority to determine that it should not be banned); whether to provide a "safe harbor" from product liability lawsuits for producers of ethanol and other renewable fuels (all versions of H.R. 6 do, S. 2095 does not); whether to grant MTBE producers -- in addition to ethanol producers -- a similar safe harbor from product liability lawsuits (the conference report does, the Senate version of H.R. 6 and S. 2095 do not); whether to require manufacturers of fuels and fuel additives to test their impacts on public health and the environment (the Senate bill did so, the conference report and S. 2095 do not); and whether to allow EPA to control or prohibit fuels and fuel additives in order to protect water quality (again present in the Senate bill, but not in the conference report or S. 2095).

This report will not be updated.