Cleanings at Defective Petrol Stations in the Pence Family Cost Taxpayers Millions of Dollars

A tank on a Kiel Bros. property. is destroyed in Indianapolis on December 11, 2017.

(Associated Press)

More than a decade after the former Indiana oil company, the family of Vice President Mike Pence, declared bankruptcy, taxpayers bear the cost of several million dollars for clean up more than 85 contaminated sites. Oil Co., which once belonged to the Pence family, has left behind contaminated sites in Indiana, Kentucky and Illinois since the company went bankrupt in 2004, the Associated Press reported. On its own, Indiana has spent at least $ 21 million cleaning, an average of about $ 500,000 per site, according to the report.

Indiana has spent at least $ 21 million cleaning, an average of about $ 500,000 per site, a report says.

Kiel Bros paid for only a fraction of the overall cleaning effort. In the court documents, the company cited the payment of $ 8.8 million in "defense costs and fees," but noted that $ 5 million came from the states.

Alyssa Farah, spokesperson for Pence, rejected these findings. The campaign spokesman for Greg Pence, the older brother of the vice president, who was president of Kiel Bros. when he went bankrupt and now shows up in Congress as a Republican, rejected the conclusions. Liberal media attempt to resuscitate old baseless attacks.

Some consider the company as hypocritical to taxpayer taxpayers the lion's share of the cleaning bill, given the family's reputation as fiscal conservatives and critical government expenditures.

Pence's father joined the company in the 1960s and became a corporate vice president in the mid-1970s. Mike Pence began working for the company at the company. 39, age 14, but it's his brother who took over after the death of their father in 1988.

In the early 2000s, Kiel Bros faced increasing debt as consolidation of the industry and low gasoline prices reduced profit margins. In June 2004, Greg Pence resigned as the company went bankrupt.

Immediately after, the state of Indiana asked the company about $ 8.4 million for cleanup and fines. After a new Republican governor, Mitch Daniels, took office in 2005, the state abandoned this claim that had been filed under Daniels' Democratic predecessor, Governor Joe Kernan.

Daniels named Greg Pence deputy commissioner in the Department of Environmental Management, the same fighting agency Kiel Bros. in clbad. Pence resigned after a few months, however, and returned to the oil business.

In abandoning his claims against the company, state officials said in a 2007 court filing that "significant cleaning activity has occurred." They also said that they were "satisfied" with the company's plan for future cleanup, which was based on the fact that the state was paying a large part of the cost.

Indiana's payment limit was $ 2 million per site until Mike Pence as governor increased it to $ 2.5 million in 2016. This year, Indiana paid nearly two and a half times the national average per incident.

David M. Uhlmann, professor of law and environmental policy at the University of Michigan Law School, speculated that Pence was using his political stance to get favorable treatment for the University of Michigan.

Farah, spokesperson for the vice president. like "just not grounded actually."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.