Money from the Fund is used to pay for the cleanup of spills when the responsible party is not immediately known, or is unable or unwilling to undertake adequate cleanup activities. Every effort is made to recover costs incurred by the Fund from responsible parties, including legal action against responsible parties handled by the Office of the Attorney General. McCall urged that the Oil Spill Fund not be merged with other environmental funds. The Governor has proposed merging the Oil Spill Fund with the Environmental Superfund, McCall said. That would be a mistake.
Oil spills have to be handled differently than other hazardous waste sites.
What we have works. The polluter pays. Instead of changing something that s not broken, let s use the Oil Spill Fund as a model for other environmental fund. Click here for a copy of Comptroller McCall's report on the Oil Spill Fund in Adobe Acrobat. Click here for a copy of Comptroller McCall's testimony delivered to the Assembly today.