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US Government Seeks $92 Million Extra for Exxon Valdez Spill    [

    An Immovable Obstacle to Action on Climate Change
    By Andrew Gumbel
    The Independent UK

    Thursday 01 June 2006

    Los Angeles - If you had to pick one company in America as the ultimate corporate villain, you might be hard pressed to find a better candidate than ExxonMobil. At a time of soaring petrol prices and growing public anger over the cost of filling up cars and trucks, ExxonMobil is not only making money hand over fist at an increasing rate - it is actually making more money than any other oil company in the world.

    The company's top officers and stockholders are, naturally, delighted. But just about everyone else these days seems to be hopping mad. The company was successfully sued last year by petrol station owners who alleged they were being overcharged.

    Environmentalists, meanwhile, spit blood at the very mention of the name ExxonMobil for a variety of reasons - the company's willingness to spend millions of dollars to refute the significance or even the existence of global warming, and the role of energy companies in exacerbating it; its extraordinary lobbying, more energetic than any of its rivals', to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to oil and gas exploration; and its continuing refusal to make good on its full compensation payments to the victims of the 1988 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Prince William Sound in Alaska.

    Watchdogs of good corporate governance have been raising eyebrows for years at the compensation collected by ExxonMobil's top officers. Lee Raymond has been a particular object of public opprobrium for some time. Last November, he testified before Congress that America's soaring petrol prices were caused by "global supply and demand" and promised that ExxonMobil was assuming its share of the pain. "We're all in this together," he told congressmen. That, though, was before it emerged that ExxonMobil made a record-breaking $36bn ( 19bn) in profits in 2005, a 40 per cent increase over the previous year.

    The recent sharp spike in petrol prices - now well over $3 a gallon, compared with well under $2 at the start of the Bush administration - has unleashed a political hurricane and played a major role in hammering President Bush's approval ratings.

    The issue is also likely to play a prominent role in November's mid-term elections. Already, one Senate candidate, the Tennessee Democrat Harold Ford, has put out television adverts blaming the Republicans for allowing the oil companies to get away with murder. Mr Raymond's retirement package, he said, was something "you and I paid for."

    In New York state, an ardent campaign is under way to break the company's monopoly hold on petrol stations along a stretch of road known as the Thruway. Eric Goldstein, a lawyer with the Natural Resources Defence Council, a leading environmental lobbying group, justified the initiative, saying: "ExxonMobil has gone out of its way time and again to distinguish itself from its competitors as the most anti-environmental oil company."

    Indeed, the company has financed about 40 organisations dedicated to debunking global warming, starting in the late 1980s. Mr Raymond himself has twice served as chairman of the climate change-denying Global Climate Coalition.

    Even the federal government has found evidence the company has contributed directly to the increased cost of energy. The Government Accountability Office recently found that Exxon's 1999 merger with Mobil alone added four to five cents to the price of a gallon of petrol.

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    US Government Seeks $92 Million Extra for Exxon Valdez Spill
    By Chris Baltimore
    Reuters

    Friday 02 June 2006

    Washington - The US government on Thursday said it will pursue US $92 million in extra damage claims against ExxonMobil Corp. for the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska, the worst in US history.

    Four US agencies including the Justice Department and the state of Alaska say it will cost that much more to clean up lingering environmental damage from when the Exxon Valdez supertanker ran aground in Alaska's Prince William Sound and spilled about 11 million gallons (50 million litres) of crude oil.

    Irving, Texas-based ExxonMobil, the world's largest publicly traded oil company, has already paid US $900 million in a 1991 civil settlement.

    But a "reopener" provision in the deal allowed the government to seek up to US $100 million extra for unforeseen damages. Exxon reported a US $36 billion profit last year.

    The government sent the new cleanup plan to Exxon on Thursday. If Exxon refuses to pay, the government faces a Sept. 1 deadline to file an official claim in court.

    Exxon will study the government's request but "nothing we have seen so far ... indicates that this request for further funding from Exxon is justified," company spokesman Mark Boudreax said in a statement.

    Exxon agrees that there are "small pockets" of lingering oil, but those are limited to less than two-tenths of 1 percent of the Prince William Sound shoreline, Boudreax said.

    "There is no scientific evidence that this oil ... could cause damage to any population or species," he said.

    Trustees overseeing Exxon's previous US $900 million payment still have about US $145 million on hand and that money should be used for additional cleanup, he said.

    But government studies done since 2001 have found that there is still oil residue left just below the surface of Alaska's beaches from the spill.

    "After extensive review it is clear that populations and habitat within the oil spill area have suffered substantial and unanticipated injuries that are attributable to the Exxon Valdez oil spill," said Alaska Attorney General David Marquez.

    Marquez said he was disappointed by Exxon's initial comments. "I hope they will take a long and serious look at our proposal," he said.

    Crude oil from the grounded Exxon tanker spread to 1,087 miles (1,750 kilometres) of coastline, including the Chugach National Forest, three national parks, four national wildlife refuges and five state parks.

    Oil from the spill killed about 250,000 marine birds, 2,800 sea otters, and wreaked havoc on shellfish, mussels and killer whales, according to government estimates.

    Exxon is still fighting about US $5 billion in punitive damages from the spill in a civil case brought by about 32,000 fishermen, Alaska natives and property owners. That case is still pending in the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals.