Socialist Venezuela Had Up to 50,000 Oil Spills From 2010 to 2016

'Why does it [Venezuela] seem to get a pass' compared to Bolsonaro’s Brazil?

The logo of the Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA is seen next to a mural depicting Venezuela's late President Hugo Chavez at a gas station in Caracas, Venezuela, on March 2, 2017. Carlos Garcia Rawlins/Reuters

On Oct. 25, a Center for Strategic and International Studies panel discussed some of the environmental damage occurring in Venezuela, which has been led since 1999 by socialist Hugo Chavez and, since Chavez’s death in 2013, socialist Nicolás Maduro.

Sponsored by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), much of the event focused on the damage caused by Venezuela’s offshore oil drilling, which has caused many under- or unreported spills, including near vulnerable coral reefs at the marine Morrocoy National Park, as well as drilling in Lake Maracaibo.