Before BP’s Deepwater Horizon disaster, there was Exxon Valdez.
Until last April’s blowout in the Gulf of Mexico, the 1989 crash of the Exxon Valdez oil tanker off the coast of Alaska was the most notorious oil spill in American history and, even today, 22 years later, the legal battle continues to burn.
As The New York Times reports, marine biologist Rick Steiner, an expert in oil spills and their aftermath, has spearheaded an effort to reexamine the Valdez settlement. The aim is to force Exxon Mobile, as the company is now called, to pay further penalties under a “reopener” clause in the original 1991 settlement.
As a result, Steiner, Exxon Mobile and the federal government are going before a federal judge to present their arguments about whether the company is still liable.
Steiner’s December motion to order Exxon to pay $115 million under the reopener clause precipitated Friday’s hearing. He is using a series of studies of ongoing environmental damage, which show that many species affected by the spill have yet to fully rebound, as the basis for his argument. “If they were to be a responsible corporate citizen, they’d just cut a check on Friday and be done with it,” Steiner told the Times.
Although he says that the federal government demanded that Exxon pay $92 million using the reopener in 2006, though it never followed up, U.S. officials have argued that Steiner has no standing to sue. A federal judge dismissed that argument and, in January, ordered the new hearing. Steiner said he was worried that more than anything, the government just wants everyone to forget about the case.
Although Exxon Mobile says it considers the issue resolved and will not pay any more for environmental or economic damage, an unfavorable ruling will add to the more than $900 million it has already paid out.
