Pences’ failed gas stations have cost taxpayers more than $20M
VICE President Mike Pence turns nostalgic when he talks about growing up in small-town Columbus, Ind., where his father helped build a Midwestern empire of more than 200 gas stations that provided an upbringing on the “front row of the American dream.”
The collapse of the Kiel Bros. Oil Co. in 2004 was widely publicized. Less known is that the state of Indiana — and, to a smaller extent, Kentucky and Illinois — are still on the hook for millions of dollars to clean up more than 85 contaminated sites across the three states, including underground tanks that leaked toxic chemicals into soil, streams and wells.
Indiana has spent at least $21 million on the cleanup thus far, or an average of about $500,000 per site, according to an analysis of records by The Associated Press. And the work is nowhere near complete.
The federal government, meanwhile, plans to clean up a plume of cancer-causing solvent discovered beneath a former Kiel Bros. station that threatens drinking water near the Pence family’s hometown.
To assess the pollution costs, the AP reviewed thousands of pages of court documents, tax statements, business filings and federal financial disclosures, as well as federal and state environmental records for Indiana, Kentucky and Illinois. The total financial impact isn’t clear because Indiana officials have yet to release cost figures for 12 contaminated areas. Other records are incomplete, redacted or missing.
The public cleanup of more than 25 former Kiel Bros. sites in Kentucky and Illinois — where officials have done a better job keeping costs down — has been much less expensive, totaling about $1.7 million, according to an analysis of records obtained under each state’s public records law.
Kiel Bros. has paid for only a fraction of the overall effort. In court documents, the company cited payment of $8.8 million in “indemnity and defense costs,” but also noted that $5 million of that amount came from the states.
Indiana’s Department of Environmental Management, which regulates gas stations, did not respond to a detailed list of questions from the AP. Spokesman Ryan Clem said the agency is working to provide records requested under Indiana’s public records law that could shed some light on how much former Kiel Bros. sites have cost the state.
Pence spokeswoman Alyssa Farah called the findings “a years-old issue” that the vice president addressed before. She didn’t elaborate.
In a statement, Pence’s older brother Greg Pence — who was president of Kiel Bros. when it went bankrupt and is now running for Congress as a Republican — distanced himself from the cleanup costs.
“Greg Pence has had nothing to do with Kiel Bros since 2004. This is another attempt by the liberal media to rehash old, baseless attacks,” campaign spokeswoman Molly Gillaspie said.
The fact that the company stuck taxpayers with the lion’s share of the cleanup bill rankles some observers, especially in light of the family’s reputation as budget hawks critical of government spending.
The Pence family, especially Greg Pence, has “some answering in public” to do, said A. James Barnes, an environmental law professor who served in high-ranking posts at the Environmental Protection Agency under President Ronald Reagan.
Mike Pence, then a third-year congressman, lost more than $600,000 when the company went under. He later became Indiana’s governor and now has assets worth between $532,000 and $1.13 million. Greg Pence, who is seeking the vice president’s old congressional seat, has total assets worth $5.7 million to $26 million.
Nearly a decade after going under, Kiel Bros. sites still ranked among the top 10 recipients of state money for such cleanups in Indiana in 2013, the last year for which the petroleum industry has reliable spending data for the company. That was out of more than 230 companies seeking cleanup money that year, including major gas station chains with a substantially larger presence in the state.
Founded as an oil distributor by businessman Carl Kiel in 1960, the company expanded into the gas station business. Pence’s father, Edward, joined in the early years and, by the mid-1970s, rose to corporate vice president.