Exxon, cleaning up another oil spill from the Pegasus tar sands oil pipeline. (Credit: KAIT)

ExxonMobil has now confirmed that on Tuesday, the Pegasus pipeline that has been out of service since it spilled thousands of barrels of oil into Mayflower, Arkansas in March spilled some more into a yard in Missouri. In the town of Doniphan about 190 miles north of Mayflower, a resident reported seeing some oil and dead vegetation in the yard. Though small in scope, perhaps as little as 42 gallons, the spill is a reminder that oil is messy, tar sands oil particularly so, and transporting it across the country is extremely risky.

More pressing is the missing oil in Mayflower from the spill last month. The Sierra Club requested the accident incident report, which said that 3,000 barrels of oil (some 126,000 gallons) have not been recovered no matter how energetic Exxon’s response was:

Despite a massive cleanup effort in the Mayflower, Arkansas, neighborhood, the federal pipeline safety agency reports that ExxonMobil has recovered only 2,000 of the total 5,000 barrels of spilled tar sands crude. The accident incident report, which the agency shared with the Sierra Club after a Freedom of Information Act request, gives new insight into the size of the spill and the ineffectiveness of the cleanup effort. The report reveals that in total 83 people were evacuated from their homes, emergency response took 40 minutes, the pipeline was operating at 708 pounds of pressure when it burst, and 2,000 barrels reached local waterways.

The Pegasus pipeline was built to carry diesel fuel in 1947, Exxon converted the pipeline to carry tar sands crude and reversed its flow in 2006. In 2011, the federal pipeline safety agency fined Exxon $26,500 for failure to properly inspect a section of the line.

The report also states that even though there are at least 3,000 unrecovered barrels of oil, the current “estimated cost of public and non-Operator private property damage” is $0. At the same time, when ClimateProgress reported on the tax loophole that allows oil companies like Exxon to avoid paying into the federal Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund because tar sands oil is not classified as oil, Exxon’s response was that it was “paying all valid claims relating to the spill.” They even doubled down and tweeted as much. But Exxon’s opinion of what a constitutes a “valid” claim is key here.

The oil in this pipeline is not paying a cent per barrel into the cleanup fund created to be the backstop for corporate intransigence: “When the responsible party is unknown or refuses to pay, funds from the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund can be used to cover removal costs or damages resulting from discharges of oil.”

Last month, local residents filed a lawsuit against Exxon seeking $5 million in damages. The cleanup is still ongoing, and many residents have still not been allowed back into their homes a month after the spill. In fact, Exxon has offered to buy some of the affected homes.

Exxon's tar sands oil spills into a cove of Lake Conway, Arkansas. (Credit: Greenpeace Photo by Karen E. McCall)

Those 3,000 barrels, or 126,000 gallons of heavy tar sands crude oil, went somewhere. Exxon acknowledges that it did spill into a cove near Lake Conway. Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel confirmed that the cove does connect to Lake Conway. Third-party observers have noted that this means there is oil flowing into the Arkansas River.

Exxon points to testing from the Arkansas DEP that find no oil in Lake Conway, but those tests only sample the top and bottom of the Lake. Other tests sampling the whole water column have found oil in Lake Conway. If the spill has spread beyond Mayflower, an apologetic “community newsletter” featuring the release of selected ducks and turtles into marshland will not be enough.

While Exxon’s Valdez spill more than 20 years ago was much larger that the Mayflower spill, the company was rebuffing claims of liability for future losses as recently as 2011.

Exxon pulled in $9.5 billion in pure profits in the first quarter of this year.

One month after dumping 500,000 gallons of tar sands crude oil from a ruptured pipeline in Arkansas, the most valuable and profitable corporation in the world ExxonMobil announced higher first quarter profits. Exxon earned $9.5 billion in the first quarter, compared to $9.45 billion last year, and Exxon’s total oil and natural gas production declined 3.5 percent.

Meanwhile, Exxon is exempt from paying taxes toward the oil spill liability fund that helps clean up spills like in Arkansas, where wildlife have been killed and covered by oil. The 1980 law exemption applies to diluted bitumen so companies escape paying the 8-cents-per-barrel fee to the fund that helps clean up hundreds of spills each year. At the federal level, Exxon’s tax rate comes to only 13 percent.

Here is how else Exxon spends its dollars, and what it receives in return:

– Exxon spent $12,970,000 on lobbying in 2012 to protect low tax rates and block pollution controls and safeguards for public health. In the first three months of 2013, Exxon spent $4.84 million lobbying.

– The company sent $3.6 million in total political contributions to PACs, candidates, and outside groups for the 2012 election cycle, and 89 percent of contributions went to Republicans. It has spent over $76,000 for the 2014 cycle so far.

– Exxon receives an estimated $600 million in annual federal tax breaks. In 2011, Exxon paid just 13 percent in taxes. The company paid no federal income tax in 2009, despite $45.2 billion record profits.

– In the first quarter, Exxon bought back $5.6 billion of its stock, or 59 percent of its profit, which enriches the largest shareholders and executives of the company.

– This year, Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson received a 15 percent raise to a $40.3 million salary.

Mayflower, Arkansas

ExxonMobil’s recent oil spill dumped some 200,000 gallons into Mayflower, Arkansas, killed wildlife, and caused 22 homes to be evacuated. As the Natural Resources committee takes up another bill to approve the Keystone XL pipeline, Rep. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) argued at a hearing that the spill is more evidence the Keystone XL pipeline is a safe bet for Americans.

Comparing the safety of a pipeline to other transportation methods, Mullin said there is no reason to make a “big deal” about the spill:

“Would we really rather ship oil across the oceans? You’re talking about a catastrophe, we’re buying the oil. The percentages of barrels that are shipped daily from rail, from road, and from water the accidents versus the pipeline accidents, it’s a fraction. Your group is making a big deal about this ExxonMobil spill? I think Exxon should be patted on the back for the way they handled this. Yes this was horrible, yes we don’t like to see it, but they handled it. They did a great job handling it. I think they showed an example of what could be done when a catastrophe happens.

Watch it:

Mullin also claimed the pipeline would reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil, which he linked to acts like the Boston Marathon bombing. “I mean, would we rather buy oil from the Middle East that sponsors the acts that we see like at the Marathon that we just saw yesterday?” he said. “I don’t know if that was actually sponsored by them or not but that’s the acts that they support.” Setting aside his sheer speculation over the cause of the tragedy at Boston, Mullin’s claims about reducing foreign oil dependence just don’t add up. Keystone XL guarantees more oil is shipped overseas, not less: The pipeline moves Canadian oil across the U.S. straight to the Gulf of Mexico, where it is refined and then exported. A Department of Energy analysis noted that Keystone XL will have virtually no impact on Middle East imports.

For the record, oil and gas companies rank among the freshman congressman’s largest donors.

Oily snakes — or snake oil?

Sure, you thought nothing good could come from ExxonMobil’s pipeline spill of some 200,000 gallons into the residential streets of Mayflower, Arkansas. After all, it was “low-quality Wabasca Heavy crude oil from Alberta.” And a technicality has spared Exxon from having to pay any money into the fund that will be covering most of the clean up costs — a 1980 law ensures that diluted bitumen is not classified as oil.

But ExxonMobil reports from the Mayflower Incident Unified Command Joint Information Center that even this cloud of oil has a silver lining:

The majority of the impacted wildlife has been reptiles, primarily venomous snakes.

Strangely, HuffPost reports, “According to its Facebook page, the Helping Arkansas Wild Kritters (HAWK) Center, which has worked to help scores of animals hurt by the March 29 spill, has not rescued any venomous snakes, but has cared for many birds.”

A jury in New Hampshire found ExxonMobil guilty of negligence for contaminating drinking water with MTBE, a gasoline additive.

A New Hampshire jury found Exxon Mobil Corp. negligent in adding MTBE to gasoline and contaminating the state’s drinking water. The jury will continue to deliberate to determine what the company will pay in damages.

Exxon Mobil, the last defendant in the state’s lawsuit, had been on trial since Jan. 14 in Concord. The jury announced its partial verdict today about two hours after it began to deliberate.

The state is seeking monetary damages from Exxon Mobil based on its share of gasoline sales in New Hampshire during the period covered by the suit. Jurors said today that the market share was 29 percent. With a projected cost of $816 million to test, monitor and clean up wells, New Hampshire asked the jury to award it $236 million.

All other oil companies named in the suit (Shell, Sunoco, ConocoPhillips, Irving Oil, Vitol SA, Hess, and Citgo) have already settled with the state. Exxon was the lone holdout. Other suits in other states stemming from action started in 2000 have been consolidated in federal court and have not gone to trial yet.

What did the jury find compelling in the state’s argument? We may never know exactly, but there is probably more to it than the fact that the company made billions in profits while paying a minuscule tax rate as gasoline prices soared last year.

MTBE increases the oxygen content of fuel, making it burn more completely. Witnesses told the jury that the ethanol could have been used in place of MTBE, which causes tumors and other illnesses in rats and mice. Ethanol, for all its drawbacks (which may eventually decrease), does not do that. They estimated that 5,590 New Hampshire wells had MBTE levels that were unfit for drinking water.

So Exxon lost a court case (which it will appeal) for negligently poisoning drinking water. Exxon is also fighting EPA rules that make cars run more efficiently and use less gasoline. It dodges paying taxes on pumping tar sands oil through (and occasionally spilling it on) America.

No matter which gasoline additive is used, the fuel still gets burned, which puts more carbon pollution into the atmosphere and helps cause climate change. Efficient engines and reducing the amount of fuel is the best way to stop all types of pollution.

A technicality has spared Exxon from having to pay any money into the fund that will be covering most of the clean up costs of its Arkansas pipeline spill.

The cleanup efforts themselves took a sobering turn as crews found injured and dead ducks covered in oil.

The environmental impacts of an oil spill in central Arkansas began to come into focus Monday as officials said a couple of dead ducks and 10 live oily birds were found after an ExxonMobil Corp. pipeline ruptured last week.

“I’m an animal lover, a wildlife lover, as probably most of the people here are,” Faulkner County Judge Allen Dodson told reporters. ”We don’t like to see that. No one does.”

Exxon has confirmed that the pipeline was carrying “low-quality Wabasca Heavy crude oil from Alberta.” This oil comes from the region of Alberta where the controversial tar sands are located. Heavy crude is strip mined or boiled loose from dense underground formations that often contain a large amount of bitumen. This oil is very thick and needs to be diluted with lighter fluids in order to flow through pipelines. Reports have stated that at least 12,000 barrels of oil and water spilled into the town.

A 1980 law ensures that diluted bitumen is not classified as oil, and companies transporting it in pipelines do not have to pay into the federal Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund. Other conventional crude producers pay 8 cents a barrel to ensure the fund has resources to help clean up some of the 54,000 barrels of pipeline oil that spilled 364 times last year.
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One week after the Senate held a symbolic vote in favor of the Keystone XL pipeline, the U.S. saw two different oil spills involving Canadian tar sands crude oil.

An ExxonMobil pipeline ruptured Friday, leaking approximately 10,000 barrels of tar sands crude in an Arkansas town. As a result, 22 homes have been evacuated as officials clean up of the world’s dirtiest oil:

Exxon shut the Pegasus pipeline, which can carry more than 90,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil from Pakota, Illinois, to Nederland, Texas, after the leak was discovered on Friday afternoon, the company said in a statement.

The Keystone XL pipeline would carry almost nine times the barrels of oil as the Pegasus pipeline.

The first oil spill came Wednesday, when a train reportedly carrying tar sands oil spilled 15,000 gallons in Minnesota. Also this week, Exxon was hit by a $1.7 million fine for a pipeline that dumped 42,000 gallons of oil in the Yellowstone River in 2011 (the fine itself is a small hinderance for a company that earned $45 billion profit last year).

As one of the companies to profit from Canadian tar sands, Exxon often takes to its blog to defend its so-called safety. Big Oil lawmakers then repeat those myths despite evidence to the contrary. On Friday, the same day as Exxon’s oil spill, Rep. Lee Terry (R-NE) claimed the pipeline is a “no-brainer” and passes environmental “muster.” The State Department recently issued a draft report claiming the pipeline will have no environmental impact, authored by a contractor with extensive ties to oil companies.

By Jessica Goad and Tom Kenworthy via CAP

Despite the many problems that states and municipalities face today—from budget shortfalls to unemployment—seven western states have decided to embark on unconstitutional and quixotic battles attempting to force the federal government to turn millions of acres of public lands over to the states. Doing so, however, would result in the eventual exploitation for private profits of these beautiful parks, refuges, forests, and other lands because the leaders driving such efforts would prefer to see quick economic gains from resource extraction rather than prioritizing these areas’ more sustainable economic uses such as recreation.

Rather than being managed so that all Americans can enjoy them, turning our public lands over to states would result in their management on the whims of governors and state legislatures, who in the West are often quite conservative and tend to ideologically favor limited regulation and private profits. According to one state lands commissioner, these bills would be “catastrophic” to the public lands that Americans know and love.

Clashes between states and the federal government over their respective authorities have long been a regular feature of our politics, especially when it comes to issues regarding control over federal public lands in the West. More than 700 million acres of federal public lands, including national parks, national forests, and national monuments, belong to all Americans, and are tremendous economic generators—the Department of the Interior stimulated $385 billion in economic development and more than 2 million jobs in 2011 alone. At times, conflicts over ownership of the federally managed parks, forests, refuges, and other properties have grown into a regional cause in the West, as they did during the “Sagebrush Rebellion,” a political movement demanding the turnover of federal lands to the states that arose in the 1970s but eventually fizzled out in the late 1980s.

We are now seeing yet another iteration of that hardy but misguided western impulse. These state legislative efforts are nothing more than corporate-backed messaging tools that can be traced to conservative front groups such as the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, and Americans for Prosperity, as we discuss further below. The proposals run directly contrary to abundant evidence that Americans and westerners support federal management of their public lands and value the economic benefits those lands provide, especially when they are protected from mining and drilling and are used instead for recreation and other more sustainable purposes.

In the past year, legislatures in seven western states — Utah, Arizona, Wyoming, New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada, and Idaho — have passed, introduced, or explored legislation demanding that the federal government turn over millions of acres of federal public lands to the states. If successful, these bills could be disastrous: Rather than being managed for the benefit and use of the American public, these lands will instead be managed in whatever way each state wants to use them—which generally means maximizing private profits through mining, drilling, and other resource extraction.

These lawmakers are waging a losing battle that amounts to little more than political grandstanding to rally their extreme conservative base and feed an antigovernment narrative. Such bills contradict the majority of public opinion in these states, as well as economic realities and constitutional precedent dating back to the mid-19th century.

ALEC and Americans for Prosperity have been fanning the fire under these efforts to “reclaim” federal public lands. ALEC is a conservative corporate front group funded by fossil-fuel interests such as the Koch brothers and ExxonMobil that develops model legislation for state legislators to introduce in their legislatures, and it has endorsed many of the bills turning public lands over to the states. As the Associated Press reported, “Lawmakers in Utah and Arizona have said the legislation is endorsed by the American Legislative Exchange Council, a group that advocates conservative ideals, and they expect it to eventually be introduced in other Western states.”

That should come as little surprise, considering that one of ALEC’s “model bills” — those that it drafts and develops to shop to various state legislators — is the “Sagebrush Rebellion Act,” which was “designed to establish a mechanism for the transfer of ownership of” non-state lands “from the federal government to the states.”

Further evidence that ALEC is the puppet master behind these performances: Utah State Rep. Ken Ivory (R), who is leading the charge for states to “take back” public lands through his “American Lands Council,” has been presenting the idea of turning federal land over to the states at ALEC conferences such as the one in Salt Lake City last summer. Additionally, Rep. Ivory has been promoting this idea to various state legislatures — he spoke, for example, with Wyoming’s Joint Minerals, Business and Economic Development Interim Committee in October 2012.

Proponents of these bills claim that the states do not receive tax revenue from federal lands and argue that the proceeds from turning the land over to the states to then be further developed can help fund essential state services such as education. They also argue that the federal government promised to turn public lands over to the states at the establishment of their statehoods more than 100 years ago.

This issue brief provides an overview of each state’s attempt to force the turnover of public lands, and then describes why this is not only bad policy that is not in accordance with what westerners actually believe, but is also unconstitutional based on numerous Supreme Court decisions.

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