Given that the business of producing and transporting oil is "an enterprise which will eventually cause pollution,"¹ and that 60 percent of the oil produced in the world is transported on or across water,² it may not be surprising that an estimated 10,000 spills of oil and hazardous substances annually pollute the navigable waters of the United States.³ The recently aroused interest in off-shore oil production is certain to increase the incidence of oil spills.

A series of large and highly publicized spills in the 1960s brought the seriousness of the oil spill problem forcefully to the public eye and demonstrated to Congress the inadequacy of existing legal remedies.⁴ Congress reacted to the problem by enacting legislation which ultimately resulted in §311 of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (FWPCA), which makes it unlawful to discharge oil into the navigable waters of the United States.⁵ In addition, §311(f) imposes upon dischargers liability for the cost of cleaning up spills of oil and hazardous substances, although a discharger can avoid such liability by showing, among other things, that the discharge was caused by a "third party."