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But there is always room for improvement. To that end, the petroleum industry continues to search for new ways to make our environmental footprint as light as possible.
Preventing Spills .
The U.S. oil and natural gas industry supplies more than 65 percent of America's energy. Bringing important commodities like this to our homes, businesses, schools, hospitals, and the corner gasoline station involves some risk that oil will accidentally spill. Therefore, industry has made a commitment to meeting the nation's energy demand while maintaining safe and environmentally sound operations. This requires preparedness and continuous improvement along every phase of operations in which oil is produced, transported, stored or marketed. .
And these prevention efforts are bearing fruit. As Captain James D. Spitzer, chief of the U.S. Coast Guard's Office of Investigations, states in a letter for the Pollution Incident Compendium: 1973-1997: "By nearly every measure, the volume of spills in U.S. waters has been on a steady downward trend since 1973." .
API's annual Petroleum Industry Environmental Performance (PIEP) report confirms this trend. The PIEP report uses factual data from the U.S. Coast Guard and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and is an important yardstick in measuring the industry's progress in protecting the environment. Based on data from the U.S. Coast Guard, most spills that occur are small. In 1997, (the most recent data available) more than three-fourths of the oil spills in U.S. waters were under 10 gallons "less than a car's fuel tank holds. From 1989, the year of the Exxon Valdez spill, the total amount of oil spilled in U.S. waters has declined from 14 million gallons to 1.1 million gallons spilled in 1997. .
Every phase of the petroleum industry has contributed to this progress. Exploration and production facilities use advanced materials and techniques, with multiple back-up safety systems.