Double Down

摘要

When the federal Oil Pollution Act became law in 1990, many foresaw financial disaster in the government's attempt to prevent another environmental catastrophe. Drafted in the months following the 1989 Exxon Valdez tanker grounding in Alaska's Prince William Sound and its massive 11-million-gallon oil spill, OPA '90 mandated an array of new safety, training and qualification requirements for marine transportation. The big one for operators was that the law required that all new tankers and tank barges be built with double hulls. Over time, it forced the wholesale retirement of the nation's single-hulled tank vessels.