Press Editorial -Exxon/Mobil Settlement

ExxonMobil settlement / Go back to court

 

The state's reported settlement of a massive environmental-damage lawsuit against ExxonMobil sure looks like payback.

New Jersey sued the oil giant in 2004 for damage done to 1,500 acres of filled wetlands at its refinery operations in Bayonne and Linden.

ExxonMobil contaminated the site with oil and hundreds of chemicals over the course of a century. Four governors pursued the lawsuit for more than a decade, seeking $8.9 billion - $2.6 billion for cleanup and $6.3 in compensatory damages.

As the trial finally proceeded last year, ExxonMobil's liability was established, and the court turned to deciding damages.

Then, in less than two months this year, according to The New York Times, which broke the story last week, Gov. Chris Christie's administration pursued and agreed to a settlement of the lawsuit for just $250 million.

State lawmakers and environmental groups, of course, were flabbergasted that a mostly already won lawsuit would be settled for less than 3 percent of the amount sought. The administration has since said ExxonMobil will pay cleanup costs for the site separately.

Attention immediately turned to ExxonMobil's political contributions, which have gone mainly to Republicans.

The corporation since 2009 has given $1.9 million to the Republican Governors Association, $500,000 of that when Christie chaired the group in 2014.

In the 2014 election cycle, ExxonMobil political action committees donated $1.4 million to Republicans and $171,500 to Democrats, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Christie also may have been motivated by a budget provision that expires in June that diverts environmental settlements in excess of $50 million to the state's general fund. In retrospect, perhaps complaints should have been louder last year when that provision was used to grab more than three-quarters of a $190 million settlement with Occidental Chemical Co.

Assembly Democrats have scheduled a March 19 hearing on the settlement. Hopefully that will get the Christie administration to end its silence on the deal with ExxonMobil.

Better still, Senate President Steve Sweeney, D-Salem, Gloucester, Cumberland, and Democratic Sen. Raymond Lesniak, whose Union County district includes Linden, said they will seek to block the settlement in court.

We hope the judge rejects the settlement as not in the interests of New Jersey citizens and proceeds to a court decision on appropriate damages.

http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/opinion/editorials/exxonmobil-settlement-go-back-to-court/article_c45a1c4f-3ef3-5ad3-a35c-b22b07496f47.html

Related post
http://gadfly01.blogspot.com/2015/03/christie-lost-nj-billions-in-fines-from.html

 Update 3/10/15 Christie defends settlement

SOMERVILLE, N.J. (AP) — Gov. Chris Christie is defending a settlement with Exxon Mobil on a decade-old lawsuit for a fraction of the nearly $9 billion the state had sought.

The Republican governor said Tuesday that reporting on the settlement for environmental damage caused by the oil company has not been accurate.

He says the $225 million settlement is on top of money the company will have to pay for environmental damage.

He says there is no cap on that amount.

He told a town hall audience in Somerville that "it's actually a really good settlement"

He blamed The New York Times for miscasting the story.

New Jersey filed its lawsuit in 2004, claiming the Irving, Texas-based Exxon Mobil's petroleum refining plants in Linden and Bayonne damaged the land and water.
http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/news/ap/new_jersey/christie-defends-exxon-mobil-settlement/article_5cb121a0-2eff-5ca1-a3a0-17cf7473c60b.html