Recent tanker accidents off New York and Galveston may give Congress the boost it needs to agree on a comprehensive oil spill liability bill.
Last year, in the wake of the Mar. 24 Exxon Valdez accident, congressmen moved to legislate a solution. The Senate passed an oil spill liability bill Aug. 4 and the House Nov. 8.
But because the legislation is complicated and controversial, little has happened since a conference committee began trying to reconcile the two bills.
NEGOTIATING ISSUES
Congressional aides took months this year trying to negotiate noncontroversial issues. The conferees finally met last Apr. 25 and plan another meeting this month.
Oil lobbyists had thought the delay was working in their favor, giving them more time to win changes. As it turned out, delay only allowed time for more tanker accidents.
Conferees are likely to give the new Petroleum Industry Response Organization a liability exemption when it combats spills. But they are split over U.S. participation in an international tanker liability fund and on whether to allow state liability laws to take precedent over federal law.
The issue attracting the most attention is whether to require double bottoms or hulls. Although the Senate bill does not require double hulls, senators on the conference committee proposed and the Bush administration endorsed a plan to require them on new tankers and to require single hulled tankers to be retrofitted or retired after 2000 as they become 25 years old.
The oil and shipping industries have lobbied against such an expensive mandate. They want Congress to wait for a National Academy of Sciences study on the issue this fall.
ADVICE FROM BP
D.T. Melitz, technical manager for BP Shipping Ltd., aptly summarized industry's stand against double hulls in a May 30 letter to the American Petroleum Institute.
He said the shipping industry and governments instead should focus on better tanker traffic control, navigational equipment, and crew training.
"The shipping industry would thus take a leaf out of the aviation industry, which does not design planes to crash into mountains and survive but concentrates the effort on avoiding the crash itself," Melitz said.
"Since 1976 double bottoms have been put forward from time to time as a panacea by people who either do not understand in detail tanker design and operation or have a vested financial interest."
However, double sides, with the outer areas serving as ballast tanks, are "a quite good idea" if they are wide enough.
Further, Melitz said concentration on the cargo tank arrangement has become almost obsessional, and more attention should be paid to other design changes-for example, to prevent the breaching of a fuel tank or cracking of a pipeline on deck.
Copyright 1990 Oil & Gas Journal. All Rights Reserved.
