Happy Christmas Alaska. Exxon’s present to those desperate for compensation from the Exxon Valdez oil spill is its new defence in the U.S. Supreme Court that the $2.5 billion verdict the company was ordered to pay conflicts with more than 200 years of maritime law.
Exxon is now arguing that trial and appellate courts erred in blaming the company for the actions of its ship captain in 1989 when the Exxon Valdez hit a reef in Prince William Sound and spilled nearly 11 million gallons of crude oil.
The company will also argue that it was punished enough, said Exxon spokesman Tony Cudmore, and that the multibillion-dollar punitive damages award — one of the largest ever against an American corporation — was excessive.
“The company has spent over $3.5 billion on compensation, cleanup payments, settlements and fines. It’s a case about whether further punishment is warranted, and we do not believe that punitive damages are warranted in this case,” Cudmore said.
More than a dozen business groups and shipping associations, such as American Petroleum Institute and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, have now filed friend-of-the-court briefs on Exxon’s behalf.
Its good to know who your friends are, especially at Christmas time.
This is just so ridiculous to me. This money should have already been paid, it has been nearly 20 years since that spill occurred and they not only haven’t paid their dues but are now still trying to weasel out of what I consider to be to minimal of a payout. The damage that spill did is still affecting the wildlife and ecosystem of that region, but they think they’ve paid enough. But they haven’t made enough? They make 10 times that every year. Little known fact, while we’re feeling sorry for poor Exxonmobile, that ship, The Valdeze, was ordered by the courts to be decommissioned after that spill, but what most people don’t know and it got zero press, is that they put that ship into dry dock for 6 months and then put it back out to sea, after the hole was patched, and the captain fell asleep and ran over an iceberg, and got stuck and was just barely leeching out a small amount of oil, that could have easily been managed, it was a small hole and the iceberg was actually plugging most of it, but instead of calling for help immediately he decided he could rock the boat and get himself unstuck. This then ripped the hole 5-10 times bigger and dumped more oil than the first spill, by almost double, and then he called for help, mostly because he was afraid he would sink the ship, not because he cared about what he was doing to our ocean or the life he was destroying in it. All this because he knew he wasn’t even supposed to have this ship in the water. I bet they paid out alot of palm – greasing money to keep that quiet. Maybe they think they’ve paid out so much to politicians and judges over the years to keep they’re butts out of a sling, that they shouldn’t have to pay the American people or the economy back for what they’ve stolen from us. This kind of corporate leniency is just exactly what is wrong with this country. Campaign reform should include not taking campaign contributions from corporate interests, ever. Campaign contributions are to fund your campaign not make you and everyone in your party filthy rich and beholden to corporations once elected. Their must be transparency and accountability for every dollar taken in on a campaign, where it came from and how it’s spent. For that matter, there should also be transparency and accountability in how our tax dollars are being spent and we should be able to see where our money goes and if we don’t approve, vote by referendum where that needs to be changed, it’s our money why do we have no say over how and where it gets spent!? That is the only way we are going to keep our politicians honest is by employing complete transparency in how they handle OUR money!