[Congressional Bills 111th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. 3514 Introduced in Senate (IS)]

111th CONGRESS
  2d Session
                                S. 3514

  To amend the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act to prohibit a person 
from entering into any Federal oil or gas lease or contract unless the 
  person pays into an Oil Spill Recovery Fund, or posts a bond, in an 
 amount equal to the total of the outstanding liability of the person 
  and any removal costs incurred by, or on behalf of, the person with 
   respect to any oil discharge for which the person has outstanding 
                   liability, and for other purposes.


_______________________________________________________________________


                   IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

                             June 21, 2010

 Mr. Begich (for himself, Mr. Wyden, and Ms. Klobuchar) introduced the 
 following bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on 
                      Environment and Public Works

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
  To amend the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act to prohibit a person 
from entering into any Federal oil or gas lease or contract unless the 
  person pays into an Oil Spill Recovery Fund, or posts a bond, in an 
 amount equal to the total of the outstanding liability of the person 
  and any removal costs incurred by, or on behalf of, the person with 
   respect to any oil discharge for which the person has outstanding 
                   liability, and for other purposes.

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

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Guaranteed Oil Spill Compensation 
Act of 2010''.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

    Congress finds that--
            (1) the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (33 U.S.C. 2701 et 
        seq.)--
                    (A) was passed directly in response to the Exxon 
                Valdez oil spill;
                    (B) establishes strict liability for parties 
                responsible for the discharge of oil into navigable 
                waters, shorelines, or the exclusive economic zone;
                    (C) establishes liability for damages, including 
                damages related to all cleanup and removal costs, 
                natural resources, real or personal property, 
                subsistence use of natural resources, government 
                revenues, diminished profit and earning capacity, and 
                increased public services; and
                    (D) limits the liability of responsible parties for 
                damages beyond removal costs by vessel and facility 
                type;
            (2) the annual report of the Coast Guard on liability 
        limits under the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (33 U.S.C. 2701 et 
        seq.) for fiscal year 2009 indicates that 51 vessel oil spills 
        since the date of enactment of that Act caused damages that 
        exceeded the liability limits for the applicable class of 
        vessel;
            (3) in the Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Act of 
        2006 (Public Law 109-241; 120 Stat. 516), Congress increased 
        the liability limits under the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (33 
        U.S.C. 2701 et seq.) for single- and double-hulled vessels and 
        gave the Coast Guard the ability to further adjust those limits 
        for inflation;
            (4) the Internal Revenue Service estimated the balance of 
        the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund established by section 9509 
        of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to be $1,700,000,000 at 
        the end of fiscal year 2009, pending resolution of outstanding 
        claims against the Fund;
            (5)(A) the cleanup of the oil spill resulting from the 
        grounding of the Exxon Valdez on Bligh Reef in Prince William 
        Sound on March 24, 1989, was declared complete in 1992 by the 
        Coast Guard and the State of Alaska and cost Exxon 
        $2,000,000,000;
            (B) in a settlement approved by a United States district 
        court on October 9, 1991, Exxon paid the State of Alaska and 
        the Federal Government the equivalent of $900,000,000 (made in 
        annual payment over 10 years) to settle the civil claims 
        associated with the Exxon Valdez oil spill, of which a portion 
        was made for reimbursement for cleanup costs;
            (C) under a separate settlement of Federal criminal 
        charges, Exxon also paid $25,000,000 in fines and $100,000,000, 
        divided equally between the United States and Alaska, as 
        restitution for criminal conduct by Exxon;
            (D) in a case consolidated into the case styled Exxon 
        Shipping Co. v. Baker (128 S. Ct. 2605 (2008)), a jury awarded 
        $287,000,000 for damages to private parties and an additional 
        $5,000,000,000 in punitive damages; and
            (E) after nearly 2 decades of appeals, on June 25, 2008, 
        the Supreme Court issued a judgment limiting punitive damages 
        to compensatory damages, calculated at $507,500,000, a 
        reduction to essentially 10 percent of the initial jury award;
            (6) as of June 16, 2010, a scientific team under the 
        direction of Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, Secretary of the 
        Interior Ken Salazar, and the Chair of the National Incident 
        Command's Flow Rate Technical Group, Dr. Marcia McNutt 
        (Director of the United States Geological Survey), announced an 
        estimated flow rate of between 35,000 and 60,000 barrels per 
        day of hydrocarbons into the Gulf of Mexico from the Macondo 
        Prospect well, known as MC 252, resulting from the blowout and 
        explosion of the mobile offshore drilling unit Deepwater 
        Horizon that occurred on April 20, 2010, and resulting 
        hydrocarbon releases into the environment;
            (7) that estimate greatly exceeds the estimated 10,800,000 
        gallons (250,000 barrels) spilled by the grounding of the Exxon 
        Valdez on Bligh Reef in Prince William Sound on March 24, 1989, 
        and is now the largest known oil spill in United States waters;
            (8) the Gulf Coast region produced 1,273,424,000 pounds of 
        seafood in 2008 worth $697,591,000 to the fishermen in the Gulf 
        of Mexico, which is the second most productive fishing region 
        in the United States, boasting 4 of the top-10 commercial 
        fishing ports of the United States in Empire-Venice, 
        Intracoastal City, and Cameron, Louisiana, and Pascagoula-Moss 
        Point, Mississippi;
            (9) recreational fisheries are important to the Gulf Coast 
        economy, with (according to the National Marine Fisheries 
        Service) 3,200,000 individuals taking 25,000,000 recreational 
        fishing trips in the Gulf region in 2008 in which 194,000,000 
        fish were landed;
            (10) as of June 7, 2010, the National Oceanic and 
        Atmospheric Administration closed 78,264 square miles of the 
        Gulf of Mexico to fishing, an area equivalent to 32.3 percent 
        of the total exclusive economic zone of the Gulf; and
            (11) commercial sectors employing a wide spectrum of the 
        Gulf Coast population (including residents involved in tourism, 
        oil and gas exploration, and a host of support and service 
        industries) are experiencing a severe economic disruption due 
        to the blowout and explosion of the mobile offshore drilling 
        unit Deepwater Horizon that occurred on April 20, 2010, and 
        resulting hydrocarbon releases into the environment.

SEC. 3. OIL SPILL RECOVERY FUND.

    (a) In General.--The Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act is amended 
by inserting after section 8 (43 U.S.C. 1337) the following:

``SEC. 8A. OIL SPILL RECOVERY FUND.

    ``(a) Definition of Fund.--In this section, the term `Fund' means 
the Oil Spill Recovery Fund established under subsection (c).
    ``(b) Coverage of Outstanding Incident Liability.--
            ``(1) In general.--No person shall be eligible to enter 
        into any Federal oil or gas lease or contract after the date of 
        enactment of this section unless the person pays into the Fund, 
        or posts a bond, in an amount equal to the difference between, 
        as determined by the Secretary as of the date of the 
        application for the lease or contract--
                    ``(A) the total of the outstanding liability of the 
                person under section 1002 of the Oil Pollution Act of 
                1990 (33 U.S.C. 2702) (without regard to any liability 
                limit under section 1004 of that Act (33 U.S.C. 2704)) 
                and any removal costs incurred by, or on behalf of, the 
                person, with respect to any incident occurring before, 
                on, or after the date of enactment of this section for 
                which the person has outstanding liability; and
                    ``(B) the outstanding balance in the Oil Spill 
                Liability Trust Fund established by section 9509 of the 
                Internal Revenue Code of 1986, that is attributable to 
                the person.
            ``(2) No effect on other liability.--Payment into the Fund 
        or posting of a bond in accordance with paragraph (1) does not, 
        with respect to the applicable incident--
                    ``(A) limit any civil or criminal liability of the 
                person; or
                    ``(B) determine or affect an appropriate level of 
                claims or damages.
    ``(c) Establishment of Fund.--There is established in the Treasury 
of the United States a fund to be known as the `Oil Spill Recovery 
Fund' to be administered by the Secretary, to be available without 
fiscal year limitation and without being subject to appropriation, for 
payment of covered removal costs and damages described in section 1002 
of the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (33 U.S.C. 2702) associated with any 
incident.
    ``(d) Transfers to Fund.--
            ``(1) In general.--The Fund shall consist of such amounts 
        as are appropriated to the Fund under paragraph (2).
            ``(2) Fees.--There are appropriated to the Fund, out of 
        funds of the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, amounts 
        equivalent to amounts collected as fees and received in the 
        Treasury under subsection (b)(1).
    ``(e) Repayment.--
            ``(1) In general.--In the case of any person who has paid 
        into the Fund under subsection (b), on the date described in 
        paragraph (2), the Secretary shall transfer to the person an 
        amount equal to--
                    ``(A) the amount of unexpended funds of the person 
                in the Fund; plus
                    ``(B) any accumulated interest on those funds.
            ``(2) Date.--The date on which amounts described under 
        paragraph (1) shall be repaid is the earlier of--
                    ``(A) 5 years after the date on which the amounts 
                were paid into the Fund; and
                    ``(B) the date on which the Secretary makes a 
                formal determination that all Federal and State natural 
                resource damage assessments and all outstanding civil 
                claims relating to the incident for which the amounts 
                were paid have been satisfied.
    ``(f) Prohibition.--Amounts in the Fund may not be made available 
for any purpose other than a purpose described in subsection (c).
    ``(g) Quarterly Reports.--
            ``(1) In general.--Not later than 4 times during of each 
        fiscal year beginning with fiscal year 2010, the Secretary 
        shall submit to the Committee on Appropriations of the House of 
        Representatives, the Committee on Appropriations of the Senate, 
        the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources of the Senate, 
        and the Committee on Resources of the House of Representatives 
        a report on the operation of the Fund during the fiscal year.
            ``(2) Contents.--Each report shall include, for the fiscal 
        year covered by the report, the following:
                    ``(A) A statement of the amounts deposited into the 
                Fund.
                    ``(B) A description of the expenditures made from 
                the Fund for the fiscal year, including the purpose of 
                the expenditures.
                    ``(C) Recommendations for additional authorities to 
                fulfill the purpose of the Fund.
                    ``(D) A statement of the balance remaining in the 
                Fund at the end of the fiscal year.
                    ``(E) A statement of amount of outstanding 
                liability determined under subsection (b) as compared 
                to the balance remaining in the Oil Spill Liability 
                Trust Fund established by section 9509 of the Internal 
                Revenue Code of 1986 at the end of the fiscal year.''.
    (b) Separate Appropriations Account.--Section 1105(a) of title 31, 
United States Code, is amended--
            (1) by redesignating paragraphs (35) and (36) as paragraphs 
        (36) and (37), respectively;
            (2) by redesignating the second paragraph (33) (relating to 
        obligational authority and outlays requested for homeland 
        security) as paragraph (35); and
            (3) by adding at the end the following:
            ``(38) a separate statement for the Oil Spill Recovery Fund 
        established under section 8A(c) of the Outer Continental Shelf 
        Lands Act, which shall include the estimated amount of deposits 
        into the Fund, obligations, and outlays from the Fund.''.
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