AG Cuomo Sues Exxon Over B'klyn Spill

The [New York Attorney General]’s office announced today that it would sue ExxonMobil, the largest and most profitable (to its shareholders) petroleum company in the world, over a 57-year-old oil spill in [Greenpoint, Brooklyn](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenpoint,_Brooklyn). Although the neighborhood’s hipster population is hardly dwindling, the [spill](http://nypress.com/blogx/display_blog.cfm?bid=43989685)—which at one time totaled 17 million gallons—poses a significant [health risk](http://master.nypress.com/20/27/informationagent/agent1.cfm) to residents and a potential thorn in the foot of [sharp-toothed developers](http://www.curbed.com/archives/2006/09/28/greenpoint_getting_fingered_too.php ) with visions of waterfront high-rises dancing in their heads.

Although Exxon has successfully mummified class action suits in the past, the petroleum giant may find it more difficult to fend off Andrew Cuomo and the Environmental Protection Agency now that a democrat is reigning in Albany. The suit seeks damages for violations to the Superfund and Clean Water Acts, among other Federal and State statutes.

Exxon-Mobile, dubbed the largest company in America by [CNN’s Money Magazine] in 2006, is hardly hurting for chump change. Why it took the State so long to redress such an obvious harm is anyone’s guess, unless of course you think large multinational corporations have undue influence on the American political process. But who are we kidding, anyway?