The head of a powerful congressional committee visited Mayflower Sunday to get a look at the community where a pipeline burst March 29th spilling thousands of barrels of crude oil.

As head of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Congressman Bill Shuster (R-Hollidaysburg) oversees the nation's pipeline system that includes the 20-inch Pegasus line that that flows through Central Arkansas.

"We'll figure out what happened and make sure they make corrections so it doesn't happen again,"  Shuster said, speaking of ExxonMobil which owns Pegasus.

Shuster was joined by fellow Republican Congressman Tim Griffin(R-Little Rock) for a tour of the spill site.  The pair was accompanied by local leaders and federal investigators who are looking into what caused the spill. 

Arkansas's Attorney General says Exxon will not pay for the state's investigation into the spill.

Last week, Dustin McDaniel requested Exxon pay $4 million. McDaniel says the figure is consistent with federal law, and with requests made from gulf coast states following the Deepwater Horizon Disaster.

McDaniel says his office is discussing other options with Exxon.

Arkansas Republican Rep. Tim Griffin wrote a letter to Exxon Mobil’s CEO in support of relocating the Pegasus pipeline, which ruptured last month, citing concerns over the pipeline’s close proximity to state water supplies.

The letter was written in support of a resolution passed by the Central Arkansas Water utility requiring Exxon Mobil to relocate the pipeline, which spilled about 5,000 barrels of oil in Mayflower, Ark. recently.

Mayflower is located in the 2nd Congressional District in Arkansas, which is represented by Griffin.

Finally, a good excuse for journalists to drink alone.

When three reporters for InsideClimate News found out they won the Pulitzer Prize for national reporting on Monday, none were in the same city — Elizabeth McGowan was in Washington, Lisa Song was in Boston and David Hasemyer was in New York.

"We're a virtual organization," said the publisher of the six-year-old Web site, David Sassoon, from his office in New York. So the celebration took place in a telephone conference call; whatever Champagne flowed, flowed in separate locations.

InsideClimate News may be the leanest news start-up ever to be presented with a Pulitzer, journalism’s highest honor, a prize that is typically awarded to regional and national newspapers. It beat out 50 other entrants and two finalists, The Boston Globe and The Washington Post, for the prize.