The state of Indiana has spent at least $21 million to clean up the contaminated sites left behind by Vice President Pence’s shuttered family gas stations, The Associated Press reported Friday.
The AP found that Indiana has spent an average of $500,000 to clean up each site left behind by Kiel Bros. Oil Co., which went bankrupt and closed down in 2004.
Pence’s father had created the business, which included more than 200 gas stations.
Kentucky and Illinois have also had to clean up contamination left behind by the gas stations, spending about $1.7 million on more than 25 of Kiel Bros.’s former sites, the AP reported.
Kiel Bros. has paid few of the costs: A court document obtained by the AP states that it made a $8.8 million payment for "indemnity and defense costs," but that the state covered $4.5 million of the payment.
Pence spokeswoman Alyssa Farah told the AP that the amounts were “a years old issue” and that Pence has addressed them in the past.
A spokesman for Indiana's Department of Environmental Management did not answer AP’s questions.
And a spokeswoman for Pence’s older brother Greg Pence, a current congressional candidate and the president of Kiel Bros. at the time of its closure, said he “has had nothing to do with Kiel Bros since 2004.”
