Republicans Ignore Warning from Exxon Yellowstone Oil Spill

Erdöl über alles! ...and all over everything.

The challenges Montana faces in holding Exxon accountable for its Yellowston River oil spill serve as a warning to South Dakotans and others facing TransCanada's Keystone XL pipeline expansion. Exxon has been so secretive that Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer felt compelled by open government laws to set up a separate clean-up command post. Exxon officials balk at answering simple questions from the governor, like locations of key pipeline equipment and contents of its oil. Governor Schweitzer is telling property owners along the river they'd better take their own soil samples to document the extent and damage of the spill.

You'd think Congress would respond to accidents like this with legislation that would reduce the risk landowners and other people who drink water and breathe face from oil spills. But Congressman Ed Markey (D-Mass.) says House Republicans appear determined to increase those risks:

We began the debate today in the House of Representatives of the Republican energy bill of 2011. In the bill, they cut wind, they cut solar, they cut biomass and geothermal, they cut hybrids, they cut plug-in, they cut all electric vehicles. They cut conservation and efficiency.

What did they increase? The budget for oil drilling, gas drilling, coal mining for the Yucca Mountain nuclear power plant.

But for safety? No. Safety gets cut.

So, wherever we talk about energy future, that budget gets cut. Wherever we talk about this energy passed, this fossil fuel passed, unbelievably, as they cut Medicare, as they cut Medicaid, as they cut Social Security, there"˜s plenty of dough left for an oil industry that is tipping consumers upside-down at the gas pump every time someone pulls in to refill their tank [Congressman Ed Markey, interview, The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC, 2011.07.08].

Less money for safety, less money for alternatives to oil, but more money to put more oil in the pipeline... and quite possibly in the Yellowstone River. Kristi Noem and her GOP House colleagues seem willing to sacrifice all other principles for the sake of Big Oil.

Update 14:17 CDT: It turns out Exxon hasn't been honest about what its ruptured Silvertip pipeline carries:

In a July 6 email to Reuters, Exxon spokesman Kevin Allexon said the crude carried by the pipeline "does not originate from Alberta" but from fields on the Montana-Wyoming border. On Thursday, Exxon revised that.

"The pipeline carries a variety of different production fields in the U.S. and Canada," Pietrogallo said in the email [Laura Zuckerman, "Montana Spill Pipeline May Have Carried Oil Sands Crude," Reuters, 2011.07.14].

Oil from Alberta is almost all tar sands oil. Neither federal nor state regulators knew that Exxon was pumping Canadian oil through the Silvertip:

Richard Opper, head of the Montana Department of Environmental Quality, said he was surprised to learn the pipeline buried in the streambed of the Yellowstone may sometimes have moved tar sands crude from Canada.

"If the question is, did we know it was carrying tar sands oil? Hell, no," he said in an interview on Thursday. "If companies are changing the kinds of materials in pipelines to mixes that make them more likely they will leak or rupture, that raises huge concerns" [Zuckerman, 2011.07.14].

Concerns, indeed. If you're applying to ship toxic chemicals through a state, that state has a right to know just what those toxic chemical are.

Related: The U.S. House may vote next week on rushing the environmental review of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline permit. Call your Congressperson and tell her or him there's no rush!