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The Oil Pollution Act (101 H.R.1465, P.L. 101-380) was passed by the 101st United States Congress, and signed by President George H. W. Bush, to mitigate and prevent civil liability from the future oil spills off the coast of the United States. It forms part of oil spill governance in the United States. The law stated that companies must have a "plan to prevent spills that may occur" and have a "detailed containment and cleanup plan" for oil spills. The law also includes a clause that prohibits any vessel that, after March 22, 1989, has caused an oil spill of more than one million U.S. gallons (3,800 m³) in any marine area, from operating in Prince William Sound. ==History== In the wake of the Exxon Valdez disaster, Alaska Governor Jay Hammond authorized the creation of the Alaska Oil Spill Commission in 1989 to examine the causes of the oil spill and issue recommendations on potential policy changes. Hammond appointed Walter B. Parker, a longtime transportation consultant and public official, as the chairman of the commission.〔 Under Parker, the Commission issued 52 recommendations for improvements to industry, state and federal regulations.〔 The U.S. Congress would ultimately adopt 50 of the Alaska Oil Spill Commission's 52 recommendations into the Oil Pollution Act.〔 The bill〔http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d101:HR01465:〕 was introduced to the House by Walter B. Jones, Sr., a Democratic Party congressman from North Carolina's 1st congressional district. Jones along with 79 cosponsors involved with the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill, which at the time was the largest oil spill in U.S. history. It enjoyed widespread support, passing the House 375-5 and the Senate by voice vote before conference, and unanimously in both chambers after conference. The U.S. Constitution, as interpreted in ''Gibbons v. Ogden'' (1824), gives Congress the sole authority to regulate navigable waters. The Oil Pollution Act of 1990 was born due to the imperfections of the two previous acts, which were the Clean Water Act of 1977 (CWA) and the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (FWPCA). The FWPCA was enacted in 1972 as part of a reorganization of the Water Quality Improvement Act. The CWA, enacted in response to the grounding of the Argo Merchant off Nantucket, Massachusetts, in 1976. Together with the FWPCA, they formed the oil pollution containment, response, and liability framework that applied during the Exxon Valdez casualty.〔Sump, David H. 2011. "The Oil Pollution Act of 1990: A Glance in the Rearview Mirror." Tulane Law Review 85, no. 4: 1101-1119. Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost (accessed February 19, 2014).〕 In April 1998, Exxon argued in a legal action against the federal government that the Exxon Valdez should be allowed back into Alaskan waters. Exxon claimed the OPA was effectively a bill of attainder, a regulation that was unfairly directed at Exxon alone. In 2002, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against Exxon. As of 2002, OPA had prohibited 18 ships from entering Prince William Sound. The act also banned single-hull tank vessels of 5,000 gross tons or more from U.S. waters from 2010 onward, apart from those with a double bottom or double sides, which may be permitted to trade to the United States through 2015, depending on their age. The double-hull tanker came into effect.The double-hull tanker has an inner hull, separated from the outer by approximately ten feet. Over the past decade, collisions and groundings have been responsible for approximately 70 percent of the oil spillage from tank vessels. In the case of a collision or grounding, double-hull tankers are four to six times less likely than single-hull tankers to spill oil. Average outflow is three to four times less with a double-hull compared to a single-hull tank vessel. If the current fleet predominantly comprising single-hull vessels were all replaced with double-hull vessels, it is projected that the double-hull requirements would eliminate four out of every five oil spills and realize a two-thirds reduction in the total volume of oil spills attributable to collisions and groundings.〔Inho, Kim. 2007. "Milking" Oil Tankers: The Paradoxical Effect of the Oil Pollution Act of 1990." Natural Resources Journal 47, no. 4: 849-866. Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost (accessed February 19, 2014).〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Oil Pollution Act of 1990」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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