The whiskey companies deny that their ethanol emissions are causing whiskey fungus, having previously claimed that it is "a naturally occurring common mold that is found widely throughout the environment, including in areas unrelated to the production of whiskey." (Calls to each of the companies—except for Buffalo Trace, which did not wish to comment—went unreturned.) But their main argument, which so far one judge has agreed with and one has not, is that federal law should preempt state law, and that federal law allows them to release ethanol into the air. Ironically, this federal law is called the Clean Air Act, and it has a clause in it allowing whiskey companies to release so-called "fugitive emissions" into the air, as long as retaining those emissions would hurt the flavor of the whiskey.