I'm Amy Westervelt.

This week there was some huge news related to our most recent season in Guyana.

A verdict came through on one of the cases that we covered, the one that Melinda Janky

filed that had to do with insurance, and particularly with something called financial assurance.

The case argued that Guyana's Environmental Protection Agency, its EPA, had failed to

require proof from SOX on subsidiary in Guyana, and from ExxonMobil itself of the sort

of liability coverage needed for a risky offshore oil project, like the one that's happening

offshore Guyana right now.

The law asks not only for an insurance policy from the local operator, but also for an unlimited

guarantee from the parent company, in this case ExxonMobil, that it will cover any damages

related to the particular activity that's being permitted, in this case oil drilling.

Part of the argument was that an oil spill offshore Guyana would not only impact Guyana,

but could potentially impact multiple other countries nearby.

In fact, Exxon's own environmental impact assessment for its most recent well indicated

that a massive oil spill offshore Guyana could impact up to 14 Caribbean countries.

Those are all countries that depend on fishing and tourism for their economies.

What this case argued was that the government was allowing Exxon to ramp up production

quickly to get around certain permitting requirements, while also not requiring that

it have this level of liability coverage, opening up the country of Guyana to enormous

financial risk, because imagine if there was a deep water offshore blowout, and it did

impact 14 Caribbean countries, where would those countries go looking to cover those

damages? If there was no policy in place requiring Exxon to pay for those damages, those

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