Oil Waste
Orphaned Oil Waste & Wells: A Hidden Climate Crisis Years ago, I developed an expertise in used motor oil recycling. Thanks to my father’s background as a congressional tax expert, I had a front-row seat to observe how subsidies and financial incentives drive cradle-to-the-grave economics. This background led me to testify before a House subcommittee in support of funding the Used Oil Recycling Act of 1980. Our goal was to launch public awareness campaigns targeting the tens of millions of do-it-yourself oil changers who, at the time, routinely poured their oil drainings directly into the environment. A few months earlier, in 1981, I helped build a multi-million-gallon used oil recycling plant in Alexandria, Virginia. Proximity was on our side: just several hundred yards away sat an asphalt plant with a daily demand for 10,000 gallons of No. 4 industrial fuel. It was proof of concept, yet a frustrating reality remained—and still remains—that hundreds of millions...