After Keystone oil spill, Kansas Democrats want to cancel tax exemptions when pipelines leak

The Keystone is Washington County's biggest source of property taxes for schools and other local government, but the company didn't pay for 10 years.
After the Keystone spilled more than half a million gallons of crude oil onto native prairie and cropland and into a creek, some Kansas lawmakers want oil companies to forfeit their tax exemptions when pipelines burst.

Right now, energy companies that lay pipelines in Kansas get to skip out on the first 10 years of paying taxes to school districts, county governments and other local units of government along their routes.

A group of 21 Democratic state lawmakers want to tweak Kansas law so that the exemption ends immediately if a pipeline carrying substances such as oil or natural gas spills or leaks within those 10 years.