Features

SEATTLE — The company that owns the tanker Exxon Valdez argued before a federal appeals court Wednesday that the ship should be allowed to return to Alaska’s Prince William Sound, where it spilled 11 million gallons of oil in 1989. 

The Exxon Valdez, which now sails between the Middle East and Asia, has been barred from the sound since 1990, when Congress passed the Oil Pollution Act. The act prohibited any tanker that has spilled more than 1 million gallons since March 22, 1989, from entering Prince William Sound. 

Lawyer E. Edward Bruce, who represents Exxon Mobil Corp. subsidiary SeaRiver Maritime Inc., told a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that the law is unconstitutional because it singles out SeaRiver for punishment. 

It’s the job of the courts, not Congress, to impose punishments; thus, the Oil Pollution Act violates the separation of powers assigned to the branches of government, he said. 

“This (law) was designed to exclude the Exxon Valdez from Alaska because of the hostility of Alaskans to the vessel,” Bruce told the court. 

Bruce said Congress clearly wanted to punish the Exxon Valdez when it set the date in the law as March 22, 1989. The ship ran aground the next day. 

Justice Department lawyer Mark Stern responded that the law is constitutional. It doesn’t single out SeaRiver, he said, but includes any ship that spilled more than 1 million gallons after March 22, 1989. 

Around the world, dozens of other tankers have spilled that much oil since then, and none of those would be allowed to enter Prince William Sound under the law, he said. 

Congress had every right to set a date that would bar the Exxon Valdez from the sound, Stern said, as long as it did not limit the ban to that particular ship. 

Stern said the law was designed to protect an ecologically sensitive area, not to punish anyone. 

“There is nothing constitutionally suspect about it,” he said. 

The case reached the 9th Circuit on appeal from U.S. District Court in Alaska. That court sided with the government and upheld the law last July; SeaRiver appealed. 

The Exxon Valdez spill was the nation’s worst. It devastated fish and wildlife and smeared oil across approximately 1,500 miles of coastline. 

Exxon Mobil says it has already paid more than $3 billion in cleanup costs and compensation. In November, a panel of the 9th Circuit threw out a $5 billion judgment against the company as excessive. 

The appeals court ordered a lower court judge to reduce the amount.