New York-A federal appeals court dealt a blow to US refin ers May 24,rejecting industry claims they were acting on government orders when they added toxic oxygenate MTBE to meet federal reformulated gasoline rules in the 1990s.Refiners have argued their"federal officer"role in using MTBE should protect them from what could be many bil lions of dollars of product lia bility claims to clean up thou sands of sites where ground water has been polluted by leaking service station tanks.
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