Law Commons^™

The Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Litigation: Proof Of Concept For The Manual For Complex Litigation And The 2015 Amendments To The Federal Rules Of Civil Procedure, John C. Cruden, Steve O'Rourke, Sarah D. Himmelhoch

Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law

On April 20, 2010, the oil rig Deepwater Horizon exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, killing eleven people and injuring seventeen more. Efforts to stop the spill failed. For the next eighty-seven days, hundreds of millions of barrels of oil poured into the Gulf. This catastrophe not only changed the lives of the families of the dead and injured and the communities who experienced the economic and social disruption of the spill – it challenged the survival of the ecosystem of the ninth largest water body in the world. The oil spill extended fifty miles offshore from Louisiana in the …

The Exxon Valdez Resurfaces In The Gulf Of Mexico ... And The Hazards Of “Megasystem Centripetal Di-Polarity”, Zygmunt J.B. Plater

Zygmunt J.B. Plater

The 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon blowout spill in the Gulf of Mexico shocked the nation with the amount of oil and harm it unleashed upon the Gulf and its natural and human ecosystems. As details of the calamity became available, they revealed frustrating parallels to the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in the Gulf of Alaska in terms of causation and impaired response capability. Similar systemic deficits characterized the actions of corporate managers and state and federal regulators in the oil industry of both Gulfs. In a “di-polar” system where industry and government regulators are supposed to counterbalance one another, …

Proving Natural Resource Damage Under Opa 90: Out With The Rebuttable Presumption, In With Apa-Style Judicial Review?, Craig H. Allen

Articles

In the aftermath of the Deepwater Honrzon oil spill of 2010, Prsident Obama uged Congess to amend the natural resource damage provisions of the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 to replace the rebuttable presumption of validity the law presently accords to damage assessments by the designated natural resource trustees that were conducted in accordance with regulations promulgated by the National Oceanic and Atmosphenc Administration with the standard of judicial review prescrbed by the Administrative Procedures Act (APA). Although the House of Representatives passed such an amendment in 2010, the Senate failed to act on the amendment before the 111th congressional …

Three Meta-Lessons Government And Industry Should Learn From The Bp Deepwater Horizon Disaster And Why They Will Not, Alyson C. Flournoy

UF Law Faculty Publications

There are many law and policy lessons to be learned from the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster and its aftermath. Some are lessons specific to the BP oil well blowout. Regrettably, Congress has failed to enact even these critical reforms, although some important regulatory reforms have been adopted. This Article focuses on three broader lessons that this disaster should also teach, but that are very unlikely to be learned; lessons that could help to reduce the risk of future disasters. These meta-lessons suggest the need to: (1) learn from the next disaster-not the last one; (2) learn from the blueprint of …

Slides: Rapanos And The Courts: Navigating Through The Fog, Jim Murphy

Western Water Law, Policy and Management: Ripples, Currents, and New Channels for Inquiry (Martz Summer Conference, June 3-5)

Presenter: Jim Murphy, Wetlands and Water Resources Counsel, National Wildlife Federation, VT

25 slides

A Precautionary Tale: Assessing Ecological Damages After The Exxon Valdez Oil Spill, Sanne Knudsen

Articles

To address the shortcomings of our existing damages paradigm--exemplified by the response to the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Prince William Sound--this article suggests that we invoke the burden-shifting attributes of the precautionary principle to transfer the risk of long-term, unknown ecological harm to those who have caused the injury. Through such a risk transfer, this article posits that true costs of ecological injury would more properly be borne by actors capable of altering their behavior to avoid such injury in the first place. In addition, this article suggests offering defendants two options for incurring damages for ecological injuries--either accepting …