Oil Spill Legislation in the 111th Congress
Released: 2010-11-03T00:00:00

Introduction

On April 20, 2010, an explosion occurred at the Deepwater Horizon drilling platform in the Gulf of Mexico, resulting in 11 fatalities. The incident disabled the facility and led to a full evacuation before the platform sank into the Gulf on April 22. A significant release of oil at the sea floor was soon discovered. According to the National Incident Command's Flow Rate Technical Group estimate of August 2, 2010, the well released approximately 206 million gallons of oil (4.9 million barrels) before it was contained July 15, 2010.

The 2010 Gulf oil spill has generated considerable interest in oil spill issues. The House of Representatives has conducted at least 33 hearings in 10 committees. The Senate has conducted at least 30 hearings in eight committees. Members have introduced over 150 legislative proposals that include one or more provisions that would affect oil spill policy.

This report focuses primarily on oil spill policy matters that concern prevention, preparedness, response, and the liability and compensation framework. For the most part, the underlying statutes for these provisions are found in either the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 ( P.L. 101-380 ; 33 U.S.C. 2701 et seq.) or the Clean Water Act and its amendments (33 U.S.C. 1251 et seq.). In general, this report does not address legislation that would alter the organizational structure of the former Minerals Management Service (MMS) or legislation that would affect the offshore leasing process.

This report highlights oil spill provisions in enacted legislation, legislation that has passed one of the chambers, and legislation that has received committee action: reported or ordered to be reported from a committee. This last group also includes bills that have been placed on the Senate's Legislative Calendar. In addition, this report provides a more comprehensive summary of two selected bills in Congress, both of which contain a substantial number of oil spill policy provisions. This information is captured in the following tables:

Table 1 identifies enacted legislation. Table 2 identifies legislation that has either passed the House or been reported from a House committee. Table 3 identifies legislation that has passed the Senate, been reported from a committee, or placed on the Legislative Calendar. Table 4 highlights selected oil spill policy provisions in H.R. 3534 —the Consolidated Land, Energy, and Aquatic Resources Act of 2010 (CLEAR Act). Table 5 highlights selected oil spill policy provisions in S. 3663 —the Clean Energy Jobs and Oil Company Accountability Act of 2010.

The bills identified in the tables are listed in (descending) order by bill number.