Exxon Extortion

"Making the situation more unbearable, many of the mom-and-pop business owners say, Exxon Mobil - with more than $45 billion in profit last year - is leading the charge to collect their money. The law gives some companies that have already settled their bill with the government the legal right to go after other businesses the government didn't pursue, or find, for payment. The big companies that sent the most waste to Beede - Exxon Mobil and others, which also didn't know of Beede's practices - have agreed to pay millions and are now, in turn, charging those smaller businesses"

But we are all in this together!

I guess you will be needing that loan after all, huh?

(See "Small Business Bails Itself Out" post also on this page)

"Cleaning up someone else's mess; N.E. businesses billed for oil dump cleanup" by Beth Daley, Globe Staff | March 17, 2009

.... Under the federal Superfund law, aimed at cleaning up the nation's most polluted dumps, if the people or companies that made the mess can't clean it up, anyone who generated waste that wound up in a Superfund site such as Beede is responsible to pay for it - even if they broke no laws....

Making the situation more unbearable, many of the mom-and-pop business owners say, Exxon Mobil - with more than $45 billion in profit last year - is leading the charge to collect their money. The law gives some companies that have already settled their bill with the government the legal right to go after other businesses the government didn't pursue, or find, for payment. The big companies that sent the most waste to Beede - Exxon Mobil and others, which also didn't know of Beede's practices - have agreed to pay millions and are now, in turn, charging those smaller businesses.

More than 1,000 small businesses across New England potentially could receive demand notices for thousands of dollars in payments each - money that many simply don't have and that they believe Exxon Mobil can more easily afford. A spokeswoman for Exxon Mobil declined to comment and referred questions to the US Environmental Protection Agency because "they are managing and overseeing everything."

It's called passing the buck.

What a bunch of GREEDY FUCKERS, 'eh?

The oil companies are AS SLICK and SLIMY as their product!!!!

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Beede was declared a Superfund cleanup site in 1996. The EPA then spent three years poring through the company's manifests to identify roughly 3,000 to 5,000 businesses and governmental agencies that sent or transported waste to Beede - from Exxon Mobil, which sent more than a million gallons, to the tiny Hopedale Library, which shipped several hundred gallons when the building switched from oil to gas in the early 1990s. Defenders of the law say the government has little choice but to pursue companies that sent waste to Superfund sites; otherwise, taxpayers would have to pick up the tab.

Like they ever cared about us picking up the tab! Seems to me the taxpayer picks up the tab for just about everything these days.

The EPA eventually settled with about 1,300 mostly small businesses and public agencies for about $17 million - but gave up pursuing the rest because they couldn't be found, or they owed too little. Then, in 2006, more than two dozen companies that sent the most waste to Beede - including Waste Management and Exxon Mobil - agreed to pay for and conduct the remaining cleanup, as part of their own settlement with the EPA. Design work is under way, and the companies' part of the cleanup will begin in 2011. The final cost is unknown.

Now, some of those large generators, including Exxon Mobil, have hired a Quincy law firm to go after the smaller operators the EPA didn't get, as the law allows. The Quincy law firm - Giarrusso Norton Cooley & McGlone - declined to comment.

Thanks for the 'help," Congress.

Cynthia Lewis, an EPA lawyer, said Beede is unusual in that it kept detailed records of who dropped off oil and other waste, and where it came from.

And that is UNUSUAL, huh?

Lewis said the EPA tried earlier to settle with many of the businesses - starting with around $5 a gallon and granting them immunity from future lawsuits. Now, the larger companies are demanding that some businesses pay more than double what it appears they had been offered in an earlier settlement by the EPA....

Officials at the New England Service Station and Automotive Repair Association said they have heard from about three dozen current or former owners of auto-related business who have received demand notices, and expect far more. They question whether the Beede company's shipment records are accurate.

Pffft!

"What is also killing a lot of the guys is that it is Exxon . . . that is going after them," said Bob O'Keefe, a Lowell automotive repair business owner and board member of the service station association. He has already paid the roughly $20,000 he owed by tracking down an old insurance policy that covered him; but, he says, that may not be an option for others.

What, they thought they would get luv from an price-gouging, profit-hoarding oil company?

He acknowledges that Exxon did nothing wrong, but it galls him to have Exxon acting as a collection agency. "If you see them making $40 billion in profit . . ." he said, "that's not fair."

But fairness is not part of the Superfund law's equation, according to letters from the Quincy law firm to service station owners. They state: "Neither fairness nor your compliance with the applicable laws at the time of disposal provides any defense."

No, GOVERNMENT certainly is NOT ABOUT FAIRNESS!

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