A Drop in the Bucket

Like the absurdly low OSHA violation fines that give employers no incentive to fix safety problems on the job, the low fines for corporate polluters are just a drop in the bucket for gigantic companies. That’s especially true in the oil industry:

Citgo was convicted of criminal charges under the Clean Air Act in 2007 for operating two large tanks at its Corpus Christi East Plant without emissions controls from 1994 to 2003. The lack of controls, prosecutors say, exposed nearby residents to the carcinogen benzene and other compounds.

But seven years after the conviction, the case is still a focus of attention in this industrial port city on the Gulf Coast of Texas, where refineries abut largely poor and minority neighborhoods. Victims are continuing to press their case for restitution payments from Citgo for hundreds of people.

Citgo was hit with a $2 million fine when sentencing for the 2007 conviction occurred in February, but more recently a federal judge ruled against providing what the Justice Department and victims say should be far more to address future medical costs and more.

Melissa Jarrell, an associate professor of criminal justice at Texas A&M University (Corpus Christi), said the $2 million fine imposed against Citgo early this year sends the wrong signal.

“There is no deterrent value, really, in our sentencing guidelines for corporations, because we know that $2 million is not a deterrent for a major, multibillion-dollar corporation,” Jarrell, who works with activists here, said in an interview in early May. “I’m certain other corporations saw that.”

The penalty that district court Judge John Rainey imposed is indeed relatively little money for the major refiner, a subsidiary of Venezuela’s state-owned oil company PDVSA.

$2 million is nothing for Citgo. $20 million would probably barely get its attention. There’s no incentive for oil companies to not keep right on violating pollution standards.