It Pays To Pollute

[POA]

(I'm just providing link, but the article itself is very good in terms of detailing how much damage ExxonMobil has done and precisely how it gets away with it.)

It Pays To Pollute

[Moses]

The bald-faced lies that these companies issue are becoming so familiar -- exactly the same as Ari Fleischer et al:

An ExxonMobil spokesperson in Baytown defended the company’s environmental record. “We strive to operate in an environmentally sound manner and strongly believe that we are operating within the requirements of our environmental permits and the Clean Air Act,” said company spokesperson Tricia Thompson in response to written questions from the Observer.

Founded in 1919, the Baytown refinery was originally operated by Humble Oil Co., which Exxon later swallowed. The Humble executives built themselves two-story ornate mansions across the street from the refinery that overlooks Upper San Jacinto Bay. Some Exxon Baytown executives still live in these houses that stick out amid the poor, mostly minority neighborhoods that surround the refinery.

The company is not only the town’s main employer but also the biggest taxpayer. Just how much power the company exercises in Baytown was evident in 1995. That was the year black sludge began oozing from the playground at G.W. Carver Elementary School. Exxon had donated the land to the school district in 1940. It turned out the school had been built on a festering well of Exxon toxins. The children were moved to another campus, and Exxon committed to clean up the site. But the company couldn’t promise that other contaminants wouldn’t eventually leak to the surface.

The school district appealed for help to the state’s environmental agency, which promptly told school officials to work out an agreement with Exxon. Baytown ISD threatened to sue, but the Baytown Chamber of Commerce persuaded school officials not to drag the district’s biggest property taxpayer into court. Eventually, the school district abandoned the land to Exxon and never received compensation. Says Anderson, the Houston activist, “It’s a company-owned town in the most literal sense.”<br>
It’s likely that few residents of Baytown even knew that for 13 years Exxon had flouted clean air laws and polluted Baytown and the Houston region more than the law allowed. But in 2001, the federal government finally seemed poised to enforce the law and punish ExxonMobil for its actions. Under the Clean Air Act, the government can fine a polluter $25,000 each day it’s out of compliance. Exxon had allegedly broken the law for 13 years. Its punishment could cost the company as much as $100 million.

On January 20, 2001, however—the day after it received the notice of violation from the EPA—ExxonMobil’s fortunes changed, with George W. Bush’s inauguration. The energy industry had donated lavishly to Bush’s campaign. And ExxonMobil did its part. Though it contributed only $5,285 directly to the Bush-Cheney campaign, ExxonMobil gave $1.2 million to Republican candidates in the 2000 election cycle, according to federal campaign finance records. That ranked ExxonMobil as the Republican Party’s second biggest benefactor among energy companies (Enron was No. 1).

Electricity providers and power plant owners began lobbying the new administration to loosen new source review regulations almost immediately, according to various news accounts. In April 2001, ExxonMobil executive Don Daigle testified to a Senate energy committee that the EPA’s new source review crackdown was misguided, and that it would stifle efforts to ramp up oil production. As the Houston Chronicle reported at the time, Daigle neglected to mention that his company faced stiff fines under the very crackdown that prompted his objections.