Juneau -- In an eleventh hour effort to revive an important oil spill response bill locked in the House World Trade and State/Federal Relations Committee, the bill's sponsor, Senator Drue Pearce, has sent a letter of compromise to the Committee Chair, Representative Ramona Barnes on Thursday.

The bill, SB 273, would require the Alaska Railroad and non-tanker vessels over 400 gross tons to provide oil spill response and contingency plans in the event of an oil spill. It passed the Senate with overwhelming, bipartisan support on March 31st.

Most of Alaska's oil spills come from carriers that are not currently required to prepare for spill response. Recently, the Alaska Railroad has had three large spills in excess of 140,000 gallons of jet fuel. Also there was the disastrous spill in 1997 where the M/V Kuroshima spilled 39,000 gallons of oil on the beaches near Dutch Harbor.

Representative Barnes has refused to allow the bill out of committee citing her concerns over the cost of this legislation and its effects on companies doing business in Alaska. SB 273 allows industry groups two years to negotiate and adopt regulations. Barnes has stated her preference to assemble a task force consisting of industry representatives, the Department of Environmental Conservation and other interested parties to negotiate costs before passing such legislation.

Pearce responded to Barnes' concerns in a letter dated Thursday, April 20, 2000 stating:

• I agree that the government working together with interested parties is a time-honored process. Which is why we have held over 10 hours of working group meetings, outside of the committee process, on the bill and have been flexible in addressing the concerns of industry so long as we were still meeting the intent of the legislation. To date, we have adopted every amendment that has been offered.

[I]n an effort to move her bill forward to a vote by the House, and to address the concerns raised by Representative Barnes, Senator Pearce made the following offer:

• In the spirit of compromise I offer the following two-part approach. First, remove the sections in SB 273 dealing with contingency plan requirements for non-tanker vessels. Leave everything else the way it stands. This would allow the remaining portion of the bill dealing with the railroad and financial responsibility provisions to move from committee and pass the legislature this session. Second, amend the proposed resolution to remove the language dealing with the railroad and financial responsibility. This would leave the task force with the single focus of resolving the remaining details regarding contingency plan requirements for non-tanker vessels.

If no action is taken on the compromise, SB 273 will die in committee.

Sponsor Statement for HB 273

Attachments:

• Letter from Sen. Pearce to Rep. Barnes
• Letter from Rep. Barnes to Sen. Pearce



• Senator Pearce Press Release 04-17-00
• Representative Barnes Press Release 04-19-00
• Representative Barnes Press Release 04-20-00