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Protecting the environment while producing, transporting, refining and marketing fuel is a challenge the petroleum industry must meet every day. For all of the benefits oil has brought to modern society, risk is inherent in taking it from the Earth -- in drillin ....

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.... into advanced technologies, the industry has made tremendous progress in preventing spills over the past decade. In 1997, the latest year that Coast Guard statistics are complete, the volume of oil spilled in U.S. waters declined by two-thirds compared to the year before, representing the lowest amount recorded since the Coast Guard began publishing data in 1973. And more than three-fourths of those spills were under 10 gallons -- less than a car's fuel tank holds. Even as the industry strives to reduce the number and size of oil spills still further, we've also learned a lot over the past decade about the best way to respond when, despite all o ....