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oil spills
As His Iran War Drives Up Oil Prices, Trump Orders Restart of California Offshore Drilling
“Mandating a restart of these defective oil pipelines won’t curb high gas prices, but it will put coastal wildlife at huge risk of another oil spill," one advocate said.
Mar 14, 2026
State leaders and environmental advocates responded with outrage after the Trump administration on Friday ordered the restarting of a California pipeline that caused one of the largest oil spills in the state's history, a move that comes as oil prices have skyrocketed following President Donald Trump's launching of an illegal war against Iran and Iran's subsequent closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
After Trump issued an executive order on Friday authorizing the Department of Energy (DOE) to ramp up oil and gas development under the Defense Production Act, Energy Secretary Chris Wright ordered Sable Offshore Corp. to restart operations on the Santa Ynez Unit and Pipeline System, which include an offshore rig and a network of offshore and onshore pipelines along the Santa Barbara coast. Among them is a pipeline that ruptured in 2015, spilling around 450,000 gallons of oil into Refugio State Beach and killing hundreds of marine mammals and sea birds.
“Californians have repeatedly rejected dangerous drilling off our coast for decades," Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) said in a statement on Saturday. "Now, after dragging the US into a war with Iran and driving up oil prices, the Trump administration is trying to exploit this crisis to further enrich the oil industry at the expense of our communities and our environment."
In his statement, Wright emphasized the defense benefits of resuming drilling, arguing that "today’s order will strengthen America’s oil supply and restore a pipeline system vital to our national security and defense, ensuring that West Coast military installations have the reliable energy critical to military readiness.”
“Directing a private oil company to push its project through without safety checks and adherence to California laws that keep our coast safe is appalling and illegal."
The DOE added that "Sable's facility can produce approximately 50,000 barrels of oil per day, a 15% increase to California’s in-state oil production, that can replace nearly 1.5 million barrels of foreign crude each month."
Yet, far from a novel response to an unexpected emergency, the order is actually an escalation in a preexisting battle between California and the Trump administration over the future of the pipeline system. The state's Attorney General Rob Bonta sued to stop the administration from a federal takeover of two of the pipelines in January.
Sable also faces several lawsuits due to its attempts to restart the system after it purchased it from ExxonMobil in 2024, and has not yet cleared all of the state permitting requirements, according to the Center for Biological Diversity.
"In its latest brazen abuse of power, the Trump administration is attempting to seize exclusive federal control over two of California’s onshore pipelines," Bonta said on social media Friday evening. "We will not stand by as this administration continues their unlawful all-out assault on California and our coastlines, and we are reviewing all of our legal options."
California Gov. Gavin Newsom also spoke out against Wright's announcement.
"Trump knew his war with Iran would raise gas prices," he wrote on social media. "Now he wants to illegally resurrect a pipeline shut down by courts and facing criminal charges. And it won't even cut prices. I refuse to let Trump sacrifice Californians, our environment, or our $51 billion coastal economy."
The Center for Biological Diversity noted that this order would mark the first time that the Defense Production Act was used to force an oil company to restart out-of-use Infrastructure and to disregard the state permitting process.
“This is a revolting power grab by an extremist president. Trump is misusing this Cold War-era law just to help a Texas oil company skirt vital state laws that protect our coastline, and Californians will pay the price,” Talia Nimmer, an attorney for the center, said. “Mandating a restart of these defective oil pipelines won’t curb high gas prices, but it will put coastal wildlife at huge risk of another oil spill. Overriding state law to let an oil company restart pipelines sets a radically dangerous precedent. It’s clear that no state is safe from Trump.”
The center also promised to push back against the order.
“Directing a private oil company to push its project through without safety checks and adherence to California laws that keep our coast safe is appalling and illegal,” Nimmer said. “We’re exploring all legal avenues. This dangerous action should be swiftly blocked by the courts.”
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Green Group Warns Trump's Offshore Drilling Plan Risks 4,000+ Additional Oil Spills
The Center for Biological Diversity estimates that Trump's new five-year offshore drilling plan could release over 12 million gallons of oil into ocean waters around the US.
Jan 06, 2026
President Donald Trump's plan to dramatically expand offshore drilling could result in thousands of additional oil spills and put dozens of endangered species at increased risk, according to a new analysis by a leading conservation group.
In November, the US Department of the Interior published a draft plan to expand drilling over the next five years, replacing a more restrictive one drawn up by the Biden administration.
The proposal includes as many as 34 potential offshore lease sales across American coasts, covering approximately 1.27 billion acres, far more than previous administrations have offered.
The new plan opens up drilling in 21 areas off the coast of Alaska, seven in the Gulf of Mexico, and six along the Pacific Coast. These are in addition to 36 new offshore oil lease sales mandated in last year's Republican budget reconciliation package.
An analysis published Tuesday by the Center for Biological Diversity found that the increase in drilling could lead to an additional 4,232 oil spills and dump an extra 12.1 million gallons of oil into ocean waters.
The calculation is based on average spill rates from pipelines and platforms from 1974 to 2015. However, it does not even include catastrophic events like the 2010 BP oil spill, which resulted in more than 210 million gallons of oil being released into the Gulf of Mexico.
"Trump’s ridiculously reckless drilling plan could cause thousands of new oil spills, threatening almost every US coast,” said Kristen Monsell, the oceans legal director at the Center for Biological Diversity.
The group estimates, based on prior figures, that 2,627 of those spills—more than half—will occur in the Gulf of Mexico, releasing about 7.5 million gallons of oil into the ecosystem.
The Gulf is home to several endangered species likely to be affected by the new drilling. The black-capped petrel's population is in rapid decline as pollution has destroyed its food source. Rice's whale has only about 50 individuals remaining and lost 20% of its population in the BP spill. Kemp's ridley sea turtle, which has experienced a population rebound after dropping to near extinction, would be imperiled by another spill.
In the Pacific, sea otters are uniquely vulnerable to oil spills because they coat their fur, which acts as insulation against the cold. Killer and blue whales, whose populations have been nearly wiped out, would also be in danger.
Meanwhile, Arctic animals already affected by climate change—like bowhead whales, Pacific walruses, and beluga whales—all face potential further damage to their habitats due to drilling off the coast of Alaska.
“Nobody wants beaches and marine life coated in crude, but that’ll be our future if Trump’s scheme goes forward," Monsell said. "Every new drilling project signs us up for decades of problems, and our wildlife and coastal economies will suffer the most.”
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Trump and Congress Just Gifted Big Oil a Multimillion Dollar Stocking Stuffer
By allowing an industry tax toward oil spill prevention and response to expire, GOP leaders are exposing the nation to the unnecessary risk of continued oil pollution, including major disasters like Exxon Valdez and Deepwater Horizon.
Dec 19, 2025
As Congress recesses this week without reauthorizing the Affordable Care Act subsidies needed by millions of Americans, it also quietly gave the oil industry a multimillion dollar tax break by allowing the 9 cent-per-barrel oil tax (on domestic and imported oil) into the federal Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund to expire as well on December 31. The OSLTF, administered by the Coast Guard’s National Pollution Funds Center, is the nation’s central financial instrument for oil spill prevention and response, earning about $500 million per year from the nominal excise oil tax—about 0.1% of annual US oil industry revenue.
In our current political climate prioritizing industry over public interest, many feared that Congress and the Trump administration might simply allow the oil spill tax to expire, as a “Return on Investment” for industry contributions made to their political campaigns. Congress did just that. As they increase costs for millions of Americans, the Republican congress and administration are decreasing costs for some of the richest companies in the world.
For decades, Congress and the administration have remained stubbornly resistant to using the OSLTF to fund necessary oil spill prevention measures across the nation, and as tax revenue and spill damage recoveries continued to be collected, the fund balance has now grown to over $10 billion. Since the fund’s use for a single oil spill is limited to $1.5 billion, we have long proposed that a substantial portion of the remaining balance be used to better prevent oil pollution across the nation. Instead of just leaving all of this money in the bank, it should be put to work, while saving enough (perhaps $5 billion) for conventional oil spill response activities.
A transcendent lesson learned in all major oil spills around the world is that once oil is spilled, there is precious little that can be done to limit environmental damage. Historically, an average of 2-6% of total spill volume is actually recovered in major marine oil spills (Deepwater Horizon was about 4%, Exxon Valdez about 8%). These multibillion dollar spill responses may look good for oil company and government public relations, but they are virtually irrelevant in limiting environmental harm. Prevention is key to environmental protection.
As a fundamental cause of the 1989 Exxon Valdez and the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disasters was inadequate government oversight, expanding drilling while cutting oversight is as reckless as it gets.
Spill prevention measures across the nation in need of more funding include enhanced Vessel Traffic Systems, escort-rescue tugs to prevent groundings and collisions of tankers and cargo ships in dangerous passages (e.g. the March 2024 cargo ship Dali collision with the Francis Scott Key bridge in Baltimore Harbor), enhanced inspection of oil and liquefied natural gas tankers, and so on. However, the federal government has resisted using the fund for such preventive measures.
With the OSLTF tax expiration approaching this summer, we proposed that the fund’s 9 cent-per-barrel tax on domestic and imported crude oil (less than 0.2% of today’s crude oil price, or less than one cent-per-gallon of gasoline) be fully reauthorized, and that the fund’s use for many oil spill prevention measures be significantly expanded. Congress and the administration were unresponsive, raising suspicions that they intended to allow the oil tax to expire, which they just did.
One proposed use for the fund is to safely cap and decommission the millions of derelict, abandoned oil and gas wells across the nation, both onshore and offshore. Regarding these orphaned and abandoned oil wells, a 2021 scientific paper found that, of the 4,700,000 historic and active oil and gas wells across the US, only 1 in 3 (1,500,000) are considered safely plugged. Leakage from improperly abandoned oil and gas wells causes groundwater and air pollution, ecological damage, risk of explosions, and damage to human health.
Costs for well decommissioning and abandonment have been estimated to range from $10,000-$50,000 to plug old, shallow wells; $300,000 for newer, deeper wells; and up to $1 million for more complex wells. In a 2015 study, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) estimated the cost to securely decommission the thousands of deepwater oil and gas wells in the US Gulf of Mexico (two-thirds of the 5,000 wells in the Gulf of Mexico are in deep water) at $38.2 billion. The GAO study reported that, of the $38.2 billion in decommissioning liabilities, $2.3 billion were not covered by existing financial assurances; and of the remaining $35.9 billion in decommissioning liabilities, the federal government held $2.9 billion in bonds and other assurances, while waiving the remaining $33 billion for companies that passed a “financial strength test.” The GAO expressed concern about such extensive waivers of financial assurances, as this exposes the federal government to substantial future costs.
Clearly, abandoned oil and gas wells present enormous oil pollution risk, public safety hazard, and substantial government financial liability that we as a nation have ignored for too long. We have to do better, and using the OSLTF for this purpose would clearly be in the national interest.
Further, while the Trump administration recently proposed opening virtually the entire US Outer Continental Shelf (more than 1 billion acres of the nation's offshore waters) to oil and gas drilling, it slashed the budget for the Department of Interior’s Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) by roughly 35%, from $220 million to just $143 million. As a fundamental cause of the 1989 Exxon Valdez and the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disasters was inadequate government oversight, expanding drilling while cutting oversight is as reckless as it gets. Thus, an important use for the federal oil spill fund should be to expand BSEE's budget, as it is largely focused on preventing catastrophic oil spills from the nation's several thousand offshore oil rigs. There are countless other cost-effective pollution prevention measures as well that need OSLTF funding.
But with Congress and the Trump administration ignoring these real funding needs, and allowing the oil tax to expire (as a gift to their oil industry contributors), the nation remains exposed to unnecessary risk of continued oil pollution, including small chronic releases, as well as major disasters like the Exxon Valdez and Deepwater Horizon. So much for “government efficiency.” Hopefully Congress will come to its senses in 2026, and fix what it just broke.
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What’s Really Behind the GOP Drive to ‘Save the Whales’ From Offshore Wind?
Think tanks funded by ultra-conservative donors and fossil fuel companies coopted a coalition of “grassroots” opposition organizations to stop the development of clean energy, despite the fact that oil and gas are the true threats to ocean life.
Jun 29, 2024
As a communications director for an environmental nonprofit, much of my job boils down to separating fact from fiction and disseminating the former to the public. That’s why in June, National Ocean Month, at the top of my to-do list has been disentangling a convoluted narrative touted by Republican party officials. They claim offshore wind energy is threatening marine wildlife, begging the question, “Have Trump and his allies turned into unlikely environmental champions sporting ‘Save the Whales’ placards? Or is something more suspect lurking beneath the surface?”
Republicans have run with the myth that offshore wind energy development endangers whales drawing from vague theories about noise and electrical generation and the construction of turbines. This myth has stopped multiple wind projects in their tracks in New York and New Jersey. It has been the fodder of countless viral media moments. And most recently, it has propelled a lawsuit against a Biden administration wind project off the coast of Virginia. Despite the fact that scientists and experts say there is absolutely no evidence linking wind development to whale endangerment, this messaging spin has proliferated.
So how—and why—did the GOP successfully promulgate this false narrative without any scientific backing? Like all successful propagandists, they didn’t act alone. Think tanks funded by ultra-conservative donors and fossil fuel companies coopted a coalition of “grassroots” opposition organizations to stop the development of clean energy. The fossil fuel industry has weaponized its cronies in Congress and “the third sector” to maintain the status quo of oil and gas energy dominance. Where there was blatant climate denial years ago, there were industry-funded politicians parroting Big Oil talking points. And where there is clean energy policy obstruction and interference now, there are the same industry-bought politicians and community “environmentalist” allies with newly outfitted sloganeering.
The fossil fuel industry and its allies will continue to fight to the bloody end for the last drops of oil and the last scraps of profit, and we do not have time to entertain their deceit.
The fact is that investment in renewable energy would actually help whales and other marine species whose habitats are threatened by the effects of the climate crisis. But the richest layer in this ocean of conspiracy is that offshore oil and gas drilling, a major piece of the very industry backing this faux-ecological crusade to save the whales, is a direct threat to a seriously endangered species called Rice’s whale.
With estimates of fewer than 100 individuals in the wild, Rice’s whale is one of the most endangered species in the world and the only baleen whale resident year-round in the Gulf of Mexico. Since its reclassification three years ago, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has scrambled to protect its habitat and mitigate its declining numbers. In the NMFS’ list of primary threats to the species, the four most severe are “range curtailment from energy exploration and development, exposure to oil spills and spill response, vessel collisions, [and] anthropogenic noise during seismic survey.” For self-identified champions of marine species welfare, the organizations and think tanks behind the right-wing spin campaign about offshore wind’s endangerment of whales have been curiously silent about Big Oil’s offshore drilling operations that comprise every single one of those threats.
It is understandable that fossil fuel industry mythmaking would obfuscate the real ecological stakes in offshore energy development. Rice’s whale is but one environmental victim of the prolific and extensive fossil fuel industry’s oceanic damage.
When Big Oil drills, Big Oil spills. Since the turn of the century, there have been hundreds of oil tanker spills—spills that have released hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil into the ocean. When Big Oil spills, wildlife populations and communities along the coast suffer. Seabirds, marine mammals, fish, and vegetation can be displaced, injured, or killed at each stage of the drilling process. They are also poisoned by crude oil and hydraulic fluids introduced by the drilling operations, which, once bioaccumulated up the food chain, sicken the people who consume them. Coastal communities also rely on the Gulf, in which offshore oil production accounts for 15% of total U.S. crude oil production, for fishing, boating, recreation, and tourism—to say nothing of the cultural connection they have to the ocean. Big Oil threatens these central facets of coastal life with spills and pollution. Offshore wind does not.
In the narrative battle over energy in the seas, the stakes are high. The fossil fuel industry and its allies will continue to fight to the bloody end for the last drops of oil and the last scraps of profit, and we do not have time to entertain their deceit. As National Ocean Month comes to an end, for the sake of our future, our ocean, and all who rely upon it, the importance of discerning fact from fiction cannot be lost on us.
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After Years of Indigenous-Led Campaigning, Court Grants Rights to Peru's Marañón River
The decision "establishes a groundbreaking legal framework that acknowledges the inherent rights of natural entities," said one campaigner.
Mar 19, 2024
After years of campaigning, an organization of Indigenous women in Peru's Loreto province celebrated "a landmark decision" on Tuesday by a court in Nauta, which found that the Marañón River has "intrinsic value" and that its "inherent rights" must be recognized by the government.
The Mixed Court of Nauta ruled that specific rights of the river must be codified, including the right to exist, the right to ecological flow, the right of restoration, the right to be free of pollution, the right to exercise its essential functions with the ecosystem, and the right of representation.
Led by Kukama women, the Huaynakana Kamatahuara Kana Federation in the Parinari district of Loreto began its legal fight on behalf of the Marañón River in 2021, demanding that the state and federal governments protect the waterway from "constant oil spills."
Petroperu's Oleoducto Norperuano, or Norperuvian oil pipeline, caused more than 60 oil spills between 1997-2019, and the 28 communities represented by the federation are still recovering from a 2010 oil spill that sent 350 barrels of oil into the river near Saramuro port.
Indigenous groups blocked the river in protest in September 2022 after another spill sent 2,500 barrels of crude oil into the Amazon, of which the Marañón is a main tributary.
The Marañón supplies drinking water directly to communities in Loreto, and is a vital habitat for fish that help sustain Indigenous communities.
"We do not live on money. We live from what we grow on our land and our fishing. We cannot live without fish," Isabel Murayari, a board member of the federation, told the Earth Law Center, when the group filed its lawsuit in 2021.
The Kukama women also aimed to halt infrastructure projects including hydroelectric dams and the Amazon Waterway—recognized as environmental risks by the International Union for Conservation of Nature—and warned that illegal gold mining has left the Marañón with mercury contamination that must be remedied.
Martiza Quispe Mamani, an attorney representing the Huaynakana Kamatahuara Kana Federation, said the "historic ruling is an important achievement of the Kukama women."
"The fact that the judge of the Nauta Court has declared the Marañón River as a subject of rights represents a significant and transcendental milestone for the protection not only of the Marañón River but also of all rivers contaminated by extractive activities," said Mamani.
In addition to granting the river inherent rights, the court named the Indigenous group and the Peruvian government as "guardians, defenders, and representatives of the Marañón River and its tributaries."
Loreto's regional government was ordered to take necessary steps with the National Water Authority to establish a water resource basin organization for the river. The court also required Petroperu to present an updated environmental management plan within six months.
Mariluz Canaquiri Murayari, president of the federation, said the group's fight to protect the environment in the region "will continue."
"It encourages us to fight to defend our territories and rivers, which is fundamental," Murayari said of the ruling. "The recognition made in this decision has critical value. It is one more opportunity to keep fighting and claiming our rights. Our work is fundamental for Peru and the world: to protect our rivers, territories, our own lives, and all of humanity, and the living beings of Mother Nature."
The women who led the legal action noted that courts in recent years have recognized rights for other waterways, including Colombia's Atrato River, New Zealand's Whanganui River, and Canada's Magpie River.
Monti Aguirre, Latin America director of International Rivers, which supported the federation in its lawsuit, said the ruling "underscores the vital impact of community-led advocacy in safeguarding river ecosystems and sets a crucial precedent for river conservation efforts globally."
"By recognizing the Marañón River as a subject of rights, this decision is significant not only in terms of environmental protection but also in advancing the rights of nature and the rights of rivers," said Aguirre. "It establishes a groundbreaking legal framework that acknowledges the inherent rights of natural entities, paving the way for similar legal recognition and protection of rivers worldwide."
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California Oil Spill Leaves 'Gooey Mess'--And a Reminder of Big Oil's Dangers
'It is distressing to once again see this kind of devastation visited upon a sensitive location'
Jun 23, 2016
An oil spill has reportedly leaked thousands of gallons of crude from a pipeline into a canyon in Ventura County, California; fire officials said Thursday--in what environmentalists say is a reminder of the dangers of coastal fossil fuel operations.
The leak spilled at least 29,000 gallons, or 700 barrels, as emergency crews used hoses to suck up the "gooey mess" that was created when the oil formed a small lake in a gorge known as Prince Barranca, the Los Angeles Times reported.
The operating line has been shut down. The LA Times notes that this is the 10th time in 10 years that the pipeline company Crimson Pipeline has had its pipes break or fail.
Meanwhile, the oil company Aera Energy, jointly owned by Shell and ExxonMobil, is responsible for 25 percent of California's output, making it one of the state's biggest oil producers.
"It is distressing to once again see this kind of devastation visited upon a sensitive location," said Brian Segee, senior attorney with the Santa Barbara-based Environmental Defense Center.
The figures on the oil spill have been difficult to verify. Earlier in the day, fire officials estimated the spill at 5,000 barrels—or 210,000 gallons—before amending it to a much smaller number.
Segee noted that the response to last year's Plains All-American oil spill on Santa Barbara's Refugio Beach was similar.
"So far, estimates for the size of this spill have been all over the map. It is important to remember that with last year's Plains All American Oil Spill at Refugio Beach, the initial industry estimates were orders of magnitude below reality," Segee said. "But we are still very early in understanding the scope of this spill and the challenges that yet another major oil spill will deliver to our region. Regardless of the size, any amount of spilled oil is inexcusable and destructive."
The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) told the LAT the spill should serve as another warning of Big Oil's risks.
CBD attorney Kristen Monsell said, "This major spill is another grim example of why we must get pipelines and oil drilling out of California's vulnerable coastal environment. The spill's already causing environmental damage. We've got to stop thinking about these oil spills as accidents and start regarding them as completely predictable ecological tragedies that we can prevent with strong action."
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Texas Floods Sending Toxic Fossil Fuel Runoff into Public Waters
'There are potential carcinogens that can lead to leukemia, brain cancer, and other endocrine disruptors that can affect premature births'
May 02, 2016
Recent flooding in Houston has sent crude oil and toxic chemicals into Texas waterways, and residents and experts say regulators are not doing enough to address the threat to public health and the environment.
Photographs taken by emergency management officials show oil slicks and other evidence of toxins spreading through the Sabine River on the Texas-Louisiana border after flooding in March. New evidence is mounting that spills from oil wells and fracking sites increase when water levels rise.
Yet scientists and environmental groups say that the Railroad Commission of Texas, which regulates the state oil and gas industry, has yet to improve safety precautions.
Dr. Walter Tsou, a physician and past American Public Health Association president, told the El Paso Times on Monday that the risks of fracking fluid and other industry byproducts mixing in with groundwater was "a potential disaster."
"I'm sure it will get into the groundwater and streams and creeks," Tsou said of the photographs depicting downed tanks and plumes of oil. "In other areas, cattle that drank the fracking fluid actually died an hour after drinking it. There are potential carcinogens that can lead to leukemia, brain cancer, and other endocrine disruptors that can affect premature births. So it is not good to drink fracked wastewater."
Ken Kramer, water resources chairman of the Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club, added, "[The oil and gas companies are] looking after the facts about what might have happened. Because of that, it's pretty hard to figure out exactly what happened."
Meanwhile, Lon Burnham, a former Democratic state representative from Fort Worth, said regulators are incentivized to go easy on polluters who contribute most of the commission's campaign funds.
"They don't enforce," Burnham told the Times. "They don't fine. But they do whine about needing more money from the Legislature."
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'Devastated Lives': Shell Sued Again over Catastrophic Spills in Nigeria
Two new lawsuits say Shell is liable for oil spills that have destroyed livelihoods, contaminated water supplies, and rendered some wetlands 'lifeless' in the fragile ecosystem
Mar 02, 2016
Royal Dutch Shell must pay for the lives and livelihoods destroyed by the decades-long deluge of oil spilled from its pipelines in the Niger Delta, two lawsuits filed in London on Tuesday charged.
"Shell has an appalling record of obfuscation and misinformation with regard to its dealings in the Niger Delta," said Peter Frankental, director of Amnesty International's UK Economic Affairs Programme.
Shell's pipelines traverse the fragile Niger Delta ecosystem--and humanitarian groups last year drew attention to the company's decades-long efforts to cover up, rather than fix, its myriad pipeline failures.
The two latest cases were filed on behalf of the Bille and Ogale communities in the Ogoniland region. The British firm behind the lawsuits, Leigh Day, charged that Shell's pipeline infrastructure is in such bad shape that continual oil spills "caused, and continue to cause, long-term contamination of the land, swamps, groundwater and waterways" in the Ogale community.
It also claimed that pipeline breakages have destroyed the livelihood of the 13,000 residents of Bille, who traditionally fish to sustain themselves, and that the spills have grown so extensive that residents "have even been forced to stack sandbags outside their homes to try to prevent oil entering their properties."
This week's lawsuits follow an unprecedented PS55 million ($77.4 million) settlement Shell paid out in 2015 to residents of the region's Bodo community for spills that occurred in 2008.
"In papers filed in the UK court prior to [the 2015] settlement," Amnesty International wrote in a recent briefing (pdf), "Shell admitted that its previous and often repeated assertions regarding the volume of oil spilled and area affected were substantially incorrect."
"Court documents also revealed that internal emails and reports showed that senior Shell employees had expressed concern as far back as in 2001 of the need to replace oil pipelines in the Niger Delta," the humanitarian group wrote, "describing some sections as containing 'major risk and hazard.'"
Amnesty International's briefing warns investors of the UN-declared "public health emergency" created in the region by decades of spills and negligence, pointing out the company's liability in claims such as the suits filed this week and laying out a case for divestment from Shell.
The Niger Delta "has endured the equivalent of the Exxon Valdez spill every year for 50 years by some estimates. The oil pours out nearly every week, and some swamps are long since lifeless," the New York Times reported back in 2010.
A Times editorial from 2014 details the darkest moments of Shell's 60-year presence in the region, a legacy the newspaper's editorial board characterizes as "devastating":
Shell discovered oil in Nigeria in 1956, and, ever since then, the people of Ogoniland have suffered from air, land and water pollution. The United Nations study found cancer-causing benzene present in drinking water at 900 times the World Health Organization guidelines. Shell stopped drilling in Ogoniland in 1993 after local protests, but its pipelines still cross the region. The 1995 sham trial and execution of celebrated activist Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight others who had protested oil exploitation in Ogoniland remains one of the darkest blots on Nigeria's history.
"We hope that the Bodo case and this new lawsuit will spur Shell on to accept its responsibilities by cleaning up the oil spills," Frankental said, "and compensating those in the Niger Delta whose lives have been devastated by them."
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As Rivers Run Black in Peru, Indigenous Tribes Left Cleaning Big Oil's Disaster
"Those responsible, where are they?" Water supply and delicate ecosystem contaminated by spate of oil spills in Amazon
Feb 23, 2016
A disastrous spate of oil spills in the Peruvian Amazon has gone from bad to worse in recent days, leaving Indigenous tribes frantically trying to clean up the mess left by the nation's state-owned oil company.
The catastrophic ruptures in Petroperu's Northern Peruvian Pipeline occurred on January 25th and February 3rd and have threatened the water supply of nearly 10,000 indigenous people, says Amazon Watch.
On Monday, Petroperu officials confirmed to Reuters that 3,000 barrels of oil had been poured into two critical Amazon River tributaries, the Chiriaco and Morona rivers, which eight Achuar tribes depended on for water.
Critics charge that the spills continued to spread and caused far worse damage after the responsible company, Petroperu, failed to act to contain the oil released by the pipeline breakages.
A third pipeline rupture was rumored on February 19, reports Amazon Watch, but the state-owned petroleum company took to Twitter to deny those reports.
The devastating spills occurred mere months after Indigenous activists staged massive protests against Peru's oil industry in September.
Over the weekend, local activist Marco Arana Zegarra posted horrific images of the oil's spread in the Chiriaco tributary:
"Those responsible? Where are they?" Zegarra appealed.
Waterways flow with black sludge and trees and flowers are rendered nearly unrecognizable by a thick coating of oil in video footage of the spills:
"At least this time," observed Zegarra, "Petroperu has given Indigenous populations suits to wear for cleaning up oil."
Petroperu president German Velasquez "denied reports the company paid children to clean up the oil," reports the Guardian, but then he went on, perhaps damningly, to say that "he was evaluating firing four officials, including one who may have allowed children to collect the crude."
"It's important to note that the spills...are not isolated cases. Similar emergencies have emerged as a result of defects in sections of the pipeline," the national environmental regulator said, according to the Guardian.
Reuters reports that the regulator "ordered Petroperu to replace parts of the pipeline and improve maintenance. " The Guardian reports that Petroperu could face fines of up to $17 million if it is proven that the oil spills have affected local health.
"This environmental disaster is just the latest in a long history of oil and gas leaks in the area," laments Indigenous rights group Survival International, observing that "[m]ore" than 70% of the Peruvian Amazon has been leased by the government to oil companies."
The group translates a call to action by AIDESEP. This organization fights for indigenous people in the Peruvian Amazon, in which it pleads for "international public opinion, the media, NGOs and civil society to pay attention to this serious event that puts in danger the lives of thousands of people living in the area who have traditionally been neglected."
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Obama Talks Tough On Oil Spill
President Obama did not quite go all Winston Churchill on BP.
He did not say "we will fight them on the beaches..." That would have been a bit too much.
But he did declare, in one of the most critical speeches of his presidency, that: "We will fight this spill with everything we've got for as long it takes."
There really was no room left for caution or compromise.
Jun 16, 2010
President Obama did not quite go all Winston Churchill on BP.
He did not say "we will fight them on the beaches..." That would have been a bit too much.
But he did declare, in one of the most critical speeches of his presidency, that: "We will fight this spill with everything we've got for as long it takes."
There really was no room left for caution or compromise.
Obama knew he had waited too long to deliver "the speech" about the BP oil spill. Americans had gotten restless. Sure, they blamed BP for being a "bad polluter." But they also were starting to wonder whether their president had a plan to do what the petroleum giant has not, perhaps cannot and probably will not do.
For practical and political reasons, Obama needed to give "the speech."
And when he did finally give it, he gave it his all.
President Obama's Oval Office Address on BP Oil Spill & EnergyThe President addresses the American people from the Oval Office for the first time on the ongoing Administration-wide response ...
This was no Jimmy Carter-in-a-sweater-speech. There were no proposals to turn down the thermostat or check your tire pressure. And there was no talk about a malaise that might be tough to overcome.
Delivering his address Tuesday night from the Oval Office, where president's traditionally speak to the nation in moments of
threat and emergency, Obama appeared as the commander-in-chief in the battle to clean up the spill, restore a battered Gulf Coast, hold BP to account and, maybe, develop the sort of "clean energy" policies that will prevent another such disaster.
Obama, who had referred earlier in the week to the corporate crisis as "an assault on our shores" confronted the challenges with military language.
He laid out what he called "a battleplan."
He called out the National Guard.
He pledged to "mobilize" to "combat" what he called "the worst environmental disaster America has ever faced."
He declared: "We will make BP pay for the damage their company has caused. And we will do whatever's necessary to help the Gulf Coast and its people recover from this tragedy."
The rhetoric was right.
The tone was strong.
Of course, as is always the case with this president, the specifics were a little vague.
The bold gestures were administrative:
-
an order that there will be no more deep-sea drilling until a
commission figures out if it can be done safely (not a popular move with oil workers "But for the sake of their safety, and for the sake of the entire region, we need to know the facts before we allow deepwater drilling to continue," - a thorough shake-up at the Mineral Management Service that will make it "a regulator" not "a partner" of industry,
- an assignment of Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus (a former
Mississippi governor) to "develop a long-term Gulf Coast restoration plan as soon as possible."
But the battleplan was not exactly detailed.
On when oil will actually stop flowing into the gulf, er, well,BP's still in charge of that but the president has directed the company to "mobilize additional equipment and technology" and, er, well: "In the coming weeks and days, these efforts should capture up to 90 percent of the oil leaking out of the well. This is until the company finishes drilling a relief well later in the summer that is expected to stop the leak completely."
On the precise level of accountability that will be demanded of BP, er, well: "We will make BP pay for the damage their company has caused." But the president says he's tell the chairman of BP on Wednesday to "set aside whatever resources are required to compensate the workers and business owners who have been harmed as a result of his company's recklessness." And, importantly, he says that: "This fund will not be controlled by BP... In order to ensure that all legitimate claims are paid out in a fair and timely manner, the account must and will be administered by an independent, third party."
But what independent party? Why not the government? And, seriously, what sort of money are we talking about here?
Obama left questions unanswered. This was particularly the case with the linkage he tried to make between addressing the current crisis and developing a "clean energy future."
The president deserves some credit for making the connection, especially after some congressional Democrats urged him to skirt the issue.
He was certainly right to observe that BP's mess "is the most painful and powerful reminder yet that the time to embrace a clean-energy future is now."
But he did not exactly lay out a precise program. "I am happy to look at ... ideas and approaches from either party, as long they seriously tackle our addiction to fossil fuels," Obama said, slipping into the murky bipartisanship that so muddled the health-care debate. "Some have suggested raising efficiency standards in our buildings like we did in our cars and trucks. Some believe we should set standards to ensure that more of our electricity comes from wind and solar power. Others wonder why the energy industry only spends a fraction of what the high-tech industry does on research and development and want to rapidly boost our investments in such research and development. All of these approaches have merit, and deserve a fair hearing in the months ahead."
Cool.
But the only really important thing he said in this regard was the kicker line: "the one approach I will not accept is inaction. The one answer I will not settle for is the idea that this challenge is too big and too difficult to meet."
That's right.
The president was at his best when his tone was activist and his initiatives were defined.
Bottom line: He "the speech" -- a little late but with the right rhetoric.
He talked the talk.
But if the president wants to undo the physical and political damage, he is going to have to walk the walk. Or, considering the urgency of the challenge in the Gulf [2]and the urgency of the challenge of creating a sound energy policy for the 21st century: run the run.
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