[Congressional Bills 104th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. 33 Introduced in Senate (IS)]

  1st Session
                                 S. 33

    To amend the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 to clarify the financial 
          responsibility requirements for offshore facilities.


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                   IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

                            January 4, 1995

  Mr. Breaux (for himself and Mr. Johnston) introduced the following 
bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on Environment 
                            and Public Works

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
    To amend the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 to clarify the financial 
          responsibility requirements for offshore facilities.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. CLARIFICATION OF FINANCIAL RESPONSIBILITY REQUIREMENTS.

    Section 1016(c)(1) of the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (33 U.S.C. 
2716(c)(1)) is amended to read as follows:
            ``(1) In general.--
                    ``(A) Evidence of financial responsibility.--Except 
                as provided in paragraph (2), each responsible party 
                with respect to an offshore facility seaward of the 
                United States coastline that is--
                            ``(i) used for drilling for, producing, or 
                        processing oil; or
                            ``(ii) has the capacity to transport, 
                        store, transfer, or otherwise handle more than 
                        1,000 barrels of oil at any one time,
                shall establish and maintain evidence of financial 
                responsibility to up to an amount determined under 
                subparagraph (B).
                    ``(B) Determination of amount.--The amount of 
                financial responsibility that a responsible party shall 
                be required to establish and maintain shall be 
                determined by the Secretary based on an assessment of 
                the facility's risk to meet the amount of liability to 
                which the responsible party could be subjected under 
                section 1004(a) in a case in which the responsible 
                party would be entitled to limit liability under that 
                section, but in any event shall not be more than 
                $150,000,000 or less than $35,000,000.
                    ``(C) Multiple facilities.--In a case in which a 
                person is the responsible party for more than one 
                facility subject to this subsection, evidence of 
                financial responsibility need be established only to 
                meet the maximum liability applicable to the facility 
                having the greatest maximum liability.''.
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