With Nebraskans concern about a proposed oil pipeline crossing the state, a new report from the National Wildlife Federation has cataloged a “decade of serious oil spills, fires, leaks and loss of life over the last decade that they says underscores petroleum company malfeasance.”

 According to the report, NWF said “from 2000 to 2010, the oil and gas industry accounted for hundreds of deaths, explosions, fires, seeps, and spills as well as habitat and wildlife destruction in the United States.”

“ These disasters demonstrate that the BP incident is not merely an accident but an industry pattern that places profit ahead of communities, local economies, and the environment,”  according to the report.

“The oil and gas industry’s careless business approach does a clear injustice to the American people. The total cost of the status quo in lives lost and environmental damage is far too high,” said Tim Warman, executive director of the NWF’s global warming solutions program. “There is a better way to meet our energy needs with cleaner and safer energy sources. We should not delay with enacting policy solutions that reduce our addiction to fossil fuels.” 

According to Warman, the report, “Assault on America: A Decade of Petroleum Company Disaster, Pollution, and Profit” provides a sampling of thousands of on- and off-shore disasters of all types, large and small.

These examples, the report said, from each year shed light on how “the oil and gas industry has continued to show negligence and experience accidents all over the country.”

“While not exhaustive, the listing offers a cross-section of spills, leaks, fires, explosions, toxic emissions, water pollution, and more that have not occurred in the last decade – the post- Exxon Valdez era, the post- Oil Pollution Act of 1990 era, when the industry claimed to have mended their dangerous ways,” according to the report.