the continental United States, and the number is 

 increasing by more than one thousand a year. 

 There is rightful concern that oil well blow-outs, 

 leaks in pipelines, and storm damage can cause 

 pollution that could ruin large parts of commercial 

 fisheries, sportsfishing, and recreational areas. 



The extent of the oil pollution problem is 

 intimately connected to the fact that nearly a 

 billion barrels of oil a year are carried along the 

 90,000 miles of U.S. coastline and enter this 

 Nation's ports. A Congressional committee found 

 that 



of the various threats to our environment from 

 oil pollution, the most serious occurs during 

 transport of oil This includes movement, loading, 

 unloading, transfer, and cleanup. It includes bulk 

 movement by vessel, river, and lake barge, pipe- 

 lines, road and rail tank cars, terminals, pump 

 stations, and bulk marketing. Accidents, poor 

 maintenance, carelessness, shortcutting of cleanup 

 operations, the apparatus and the methods used- 

 all contribute to the problem. ^ 



The immediate need is to stem the heavy 

 damage to the Nation's resources arising from the 

 2,000 or more spills of oil and other hazardous 

 materials that occur each year in U.S. waterways. 



The Administration took a commendable step 

 toward solving this problem when it formulated 

 the National Multi-Agency Contingency Plan last 

 fall.* This panel endorses the concept of the 

 Government reacting quickly and expeditiously to 

 stem the deleterious effects of an oil spill, as 

 detailed in the Plan. We believe, though, that its 

 creators were restrained by lack of sufficient legal 

 authority to assign fiscal responsibiUty to those 

 agents, land-based or sea-based, responsible for 

 acts leading to pollution of our waters by oil or 

 similarly hazardous material. We endorse legislative 

 efforts to assign such fiscal responsibility to the 

 owners and operators of offending vessels and 

 installations, sea- and shore-based. 



One practical problem in assigning financial 

 responsibility is that the effects of pollution may 

 go on and on with no end to the legal liability of 

 the polluters. Insurance companies are loath to 

 underwrite policies to cover all contingencies. This 



PRIMARY AREA OF STUDY 



Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 

 1967, Report of the Committee on Public Works, U.S. 

 Senate, Report No. 917, Dec. 11, 1967. 



National Multi-Agency Oil and Hazardous Materials 

 Contingency Plan, September 1968. 



Figure 5. Waste dumping areas off New York. 

 More must be learned about the effects of 

 dumping wastes at sea. 



panel believes that there should be appropriate 

 hmitations to a polluter's UabUity. However, the 

 liability should be high enough to effectively deter 

 potential polluters, and to cover much if not all of 

 the cleanup— but not so high as to make insurance 

 unavailable. 



IV. FEDERAL ACTS, ORDERS. AND AGREE- 

 MENTS 



Federal interest in water pollution dates back 

 many years, the first major effort occurring with 

 the Oil Pollution Act of 1924.'' However, the 

 intense public interest in pollution is a relatively 

 new phenomenon. Congress has responded by 

 creating the Federal Water Pollution Control Ad- 

 ministration through legislation passed in 1965. A 

 year later Congress passed additional water pollu- 

 tion control legislation. Both pieces passed with- 

 out a single dissenting vote, thereby underscoring 

 Congress' interest in clean water. This goal was 

 further stated by the President in Executive Order 

 11288, signed July 2, 1966. 



The Water Quality Act of 1965, one of the two 

 recent amendments to the Federal Water Pollution 



^33 U.S.C. 431 et seq. This Act prohibits the 

 discharge of oil from any boat or vessel into navigable 

 waters of the United States or upon the shoreline. 



111-53 



