Berkshire's Lubrizol may face state "legal action" after Illinois plant fire 

A spectacular fire that's burned for days this week at a plant owned by Berkshire Hathaway unit Lubrizol has prompted the Illinois Environmental Protection agency to ask the state's attorney general to "pursue legal action" for violations of laws and regulations "related to chemical fire and release of pollutants to the atmosphere."

In a news release, the agency also asks for documentation on "the cause of the fire, and an estimate of the nature and amount of any emissions of sulfuric acid mist, particulate matter, and other air contaminants emitted as a result of the fire."

A statement posted Thursday by Lubrizol says that after a "thorough evaluation of every... material burned" that it is confident there is "no health risk in the short or long-term, other than the short-term irritation one would normally experience in the presence of smoke."

It promises to "work with state and federal regulators to address the concerns raised" by the state regulators.

NBC station WMAQ reports local health officials say "soil, water and air samples collected over the last few days indicate no dangerous material," although testing will continue at various sites, including the nearby Rock River.

For three hours on Tuesday, a contractor hired to help fight the fire used foam containing toxic compounds, until the local fire chief ordered them to clean up the chemicals and switch to a non-toxic foam. 

The fire started early Monday at the Chemtool plant in Rockton, Illinois that makes fluids, lubricants, and grease.

Chemtool, founded in 1963, was purchased by Lubrizol in 2013. Berkshire bought Lubrizol for $9 billion in 2011.

Earlier today, an evacuation order that affected a one-mile radius around the plant was lifted, allowing residents to return home for the first time in four days. Businesses in the area are also being allowed to reopen.

Lubrizol is offering "reimbursement for personal expenses tied to the evacuation, such as hotel stays."

It also says plant employees will continue to be paid "while we work through this event," and "we expect to leverage many of our local employees during our recovery and clean up stage."

At a Tuesday news conference, a Lubrizol executive said, "We’re just really heartbroken by what happened and its impact on the community in particular."

Rockton's fire chief says there's no immediate indication the fire didn't start by accident, but a full investigation will have to wait until the blaze is completely extinguished.

Buffett's tax bill still being debated

The question of whether billionaires like Warren Buffett should get the blame for how much (or little) they pay in Federal income taxes continued this week.

As I detailed in last week's newsletter, ProPublica ran a widely-cited article using tax data (from what appears to be an illegal leak) for some of the country's wealthiest people, including Buffett.

It's basic point is that under U.S. tax law, unrealized gains for property, including stocks, are not taxed until the property is sold. As a result, there can be enormous gains from year to year in a person's "paper" wealth without an accompanying tax liability.

In a New York Times guest essay headlined "Warren Buffett and the Myth of the 'Good Billionaire,' Anand Giridharadas argues that while Buffett appears to be "the good kind" of billionaire, he is "actually the most dangerous kind of billionaire we have... The sort who make it seem like the problem is the distortion of the system when, in fact, the problem is the system."

He points to Buffett's response to the ProPublica article in which he said he believes his fortune will be of more use to society "if disbursed philanthropically than if it is used to slightly reduce an ever-increasing U.S. debt."

To Giridharadas, that translates to "I believe in higher income taxes on people like me, but I’m highly organized to avoid having income to report, and I don’t really believe in taxes because I think I should decide how these surplus resources are spent."

In her piece about the controversy, Times Opinion Columnist Maureen Dowd called Buffett a "grandfatherly shark" who "famously tut-tutted that his secretary paid a higher tax rate than he did," but "topped the list, among the 25 richest Americans, for avoiding the most taxes."

With a photo of Buffett at the top of their story, Inside Philanthropy's headline was "The Super-Rich Skate Around Paying Income Tax. Is Philanthropy Complicit?" 

Business Insider's Theron Mohamed comes to Buffett's defense in an opinion piece headlined, "Warren Buffett is under fire for avoiding taxes. Give him a break."

"Warren Buffett is being cast as the face of billionaire greed ... However, the investor's minimal tax bill seems far less outrageous when viewed in the context of his modest lifestyle, philanthropic efforts, the nature of his company and its shareholders, his calls to raise taxes on the wealthy, and his refusal to use popular tax loopholes."

BUFFETT AROUND THE INTERNET

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BERKSHIRE STOCK WATCH

BERKSHIRE'S TOP U.S. STOCK HOLDINGS - June 18, 2021

Berkshire's top holdings of disclosed publicly-traded U.S. stocks by market value, based on today's closing prices.

Holdings are as of March 31, 2021 as reported in Berkshire Hathaway’s 13F filing on May 17, 2021, except for Apple, Bank of America, and U.S. Bancorp, which also include shares held as of March 31, 2021 as disclosed in New England Asset Management’s 13F filing on May 17, 2021.

In addition to U.S. stocks, shares held as of December 31, 2020 of China's BYD, as listed in Buffett's 2020 letter to shareholders, are included. The price of those shares in U.S. trading is used to approximate the current market value of the position. The value of the stake as a percentage of the company's market value is fixed at what was listed as of December 31, 2020 in the letter.

The full list of holdings and current market values is available from CNBC.com's Berkshire Hathaway Portfolio Tracker.

QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS

Please send any questions or comments about the newsletter to me at alex.crippen@nbcuni.com. (Sorry, but we don't forward questions or comments to Buffett himself.)

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-- Alex Crippen, Editor, Warren Buffett Watch