Kay Bailey Hutchison: “I do want to address some of the issues and some of the facts that were misstated by the Senator from California because…”

“I do want to address some of the issues and some of the facts that were misstated by the Senator from California because I think it is very important that the Record be set straight. I attempted to correct the Senator from California while she was speaking, but she preferred to continue to speak, so I want the Record to be very clear on some of these important facts. First, the Senator from California and the Senator from Illinois made much of the testimony of a former executive from Arco who had testified, they said, under oath that oil companies had in fact misstated and actually tried to hide the value of the oil and not pay their fair share in oil royalties to the State of California and the City of Long Beach. In fact, I am very pleased that they brought that up because the case has actually been settled just in the last couple weeks. In fact, the Senators from California and Illinois mentioned that several oil companies had settled because they, for whatever reason, did not want to go forward with the costly litigation. But Exxon decided not to settle, and the Arco employee did testify in the Exxon case, under oath, that the oil companies were misstating the value of the royalties they owed to the State and to the City of Long Beach. This case went to a jury, a jury in California of 12 citizens. The jury found that the Arco employee was not credible.”