Learning From Disasters: Twenty-One Years After the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill, Will Reactions to the Deepwater Horizon Blowout Finally Address the Systemic Flaws Revealed in Alaska?

November 2010

Citation:

ELR 11041

Issue

Author

Zygmunt J.B. Plater

Twenty-one years ago, after the calamitous Exxon Valdez oil spill (EVOS) in Alaska's Prince William Sound, the pervasive systemic flaws--that, according to the State of Alaska Oil Spill Commission, had made a major calamity not just possible but probable1--were largely cloaked behind the figure of a captain with a drinking problem. This time around, after suffering another horrific oil incident--this one almost 20 times larger than the Exxon Valdez spill2--the question for national energy law and policy is whether, this time around, we'll acknowledge and implement the hard systemic lessons largely avoided two decades ago. The Deepwater Horizon tragedy will be a doubly disastrous occasion if it does not produce systemic changes for the future, as the Exxon Valdez markedly failed to do. As White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said in another context, "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste."

Zygmunt J.B. Plater is Professor of Law, Boston College Law School.

Learning From Disasters: Twenty-One Years After the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill, Will Reactions to the Deepwater Horizon Blowout Finally Address the Systemic Flaws Revealed in Alaska?

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Learning From Disasters: Twenty-One Years After the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill, Will Reactions to the Deepwater Horizon Blowout Finally Address the Systemic Flaws Revealed in Alaska?