COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray and the Petroleum Underground Storage Tank Release Compensation Board (PUSTRCB) has notified the leaders of five major oil companiesBP, Chevron, Sunoco, Marathon and Shellthat his office is reviewing whether they should be required to pay back tens of millions of dollars in claims they made to a state fund intended to help gas station owners and operators, individuals and state and local governments address contamination from underground petroleum storage tank systems.
The letters call into question whether those [image-nocss] companies improperly billed PUSTRCB and received compensation from the Ohio Petroleum Underground Storage Tank Release Compensation Fund while also receiving compensation on the same claims from their insurance carriers, which would violate Ohio law.
"After reviewing hundreds of pages of documentation, we have serious concerns about whether these companies collected reimbursement from the state for cleanup costs while making insurance claims for the same expenses," said Cordray. "Ohio's Petroleum Underground Storage Tank Release Compensation Fund is intended to be used only for cleanups that cannot be reimbursed through any other source, including private insurance policies. Collecting from both sources would be the kind of double-dipping the law aims to prevent. If we find evidence of double-dipping, we will pursue the repayment of those fundswhich could add up to tens of millions of dollarsto the fund."
The PUSTRCB in June authorized the AG to undertake an investigation and send demand letters to the oil companies to seek recovery of monies paid out by the fund.
To review the letters sent to the companies by the AG, click here.
Similar demand letters have been sent by Florida, Montana and Oklahoma. South Dakota has filed suit.
The fund was created in 1989 in order to reimburse Ohio's petroleum UST owners and operators for the cleanup of leaking tank systems. By statute, all petroleum UST owners in the state of Ohio are required to pay an annual fee into the fund, which provides compensation for cleanup expenses. The fund is administered by the PUSTRCB.
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