of disagreement, was one of those Sections of the bill in contention between 

 the House and Senate. During House-Senate conference on S. 2083, the House 

 Merchant Marine and Fisheries Committee argued that there was little informa- 

 tion on the subject of damage assessment and that the need for such a pro- 

 vision could not be demonstrated. The Senate, while admitting that some prob- 

 lems existed in the scientific and economic methods for damage assessment, 

 held strongly to the conviction that any legislation involving compensation 

 and liability for spills would be both incomplete and inequitable without a 

 prevision providing redress where natural resource damage has occurred. 



Again this year at Senate Environment Committee hearings concerning lia- 

 bility for abandoned dump sites, the Committee received testimony on the sub- 

 ject of damage assessment and agreed to consider the issue in any liability 

 and compensation legislation it might address in the 96th Congress. 



Our prediction then is that most certainly the Senate Environment 

 Committee, and probably the entire Senate, will again approve the damage 

 assessment concept as part of their legislation addressing spills of oil and 

 hazardous materials. Many around the country, including some in this group, 

 might question why such a commitment to the inclusion of a damage assessment 

 process in the Superfund legislation has been made by members of the Senate 

 Environment Committee? The answer to this question is the principle subject 

 of this presentation. 



If Congress intends to pass legislation calling for an equitable oil and 

 hazardous liability fund, the need for an implementable damage assessment pro- 

 vision is obvious. If Congress allows damage assessments to be done on an ad 

 hoc basis, as they are now, with no formal procedures or guidelines, inequi- 

 ties in terms of assessed damaged and identified restorative actions will 

 most certainly continue to be the rule rather than the exception. The Senate 

 bill of last year would mandate assessment procedures which would be based on 

 the most current state-of-the-art for assessing natural resource damages. 



Where damage to natural resources occurs from oil or hazardous material 

 spills it is most often very difficult to determine what level of response and 

 compensation is required. Here the damaged party is the public. The public 

 may be affected directly such as where a commercial oysterman loses his live- 

 lihood due to a spill that destroys his oyster beds -- or indirectly through 

 habitat destruction caused by the spill that ultimately reduces the produc- 

 tivity of the affected area which also results in a damaged fishery. 



An effective natural resource damage provision must address both of 

 these situations by assessing both in the most up-to-date fashion possible. 

 In order to make these assessments, several methods of estimating the damages 

 have been proposed. For example, for direct loss of animal life some have 

 estimated the value of purchasing a replacement organism from a biological 

 supply catalog. The problem with this approach is that most of these critters 

 come packed in formaldehyde -- and are not going to do the commercial fisher- 

 man who has lost economic livelihood any good. 



158 



