The Exxon Valdez oil spill was a major environmental disaster that made worldwide headlines in the spring of 1989 and occurred in Alaska's Prince William Sound on March 24,1989. The spill occurred when Exxon Valdez,an oil supertanker owned by Exxon Shipping Company,bound for Long Beach,California,struck Prince William Sound's Bligh Reef,6 mi (9.7 km) west of Tatitlek,Alaska at 12:04 a.m. The tanker spilled more than 10 million US gallons (240,000 bbl) of crude oil over the next few days.
Exxon Valdez was an oil tanker that gained notoriety after running aground in Prince William Sound,spilling her cargo of crude oil into the sea. On 24 March 1989,while owned by the former Exxon Shipping Company,captained by Joseph Hazelwood and First Mate James Kunkel,and bound for Long Beach,California,the vessel ran aground on the Bligh Reef,resulting in the second largest oil spill in United States history. The size of the spill is estimated to have been 40,900 to 120,000 m3. In 1989,the Exxon Valdez oil spill was listed as the 54th-largest spill in history.
Forrest Hood "Fob" James Jr. is an American politician,civil engineer,entrepreneur,and former football player. He served as the 48th governor of Alabama,first as a Democrat from 1979–1983,and then as a Republican from 1995 to 1999.
James Elisha 'Jim' Folsom Jr. is an American politician who was the 50th governor of Alabama from April 22,1993,to January 16,1995. He has also served as the lieutenant governor of Alabama on two occasions. He is a member of the Democratic Party.
Charles Woods was an Alabama businessman and broadcaster,and aspiring politician. Woods was raised in an orphanage. He enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force before joining the U.S. Army Air Corps in World War II. He was a decorated pilot with the Air Corps.
Sue Bell Cobb is an American jurist and former chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court,the first woman to hold that office in Alabama's history. In 2018 she unsuccessfully ran for governor of Alabama losing in the primary to Tuscaloosa mayor Walt Maddox receiving 30 percent of the vote compared to his 52 percent.
The lieutenant governor of Alabama is the president of the Alabama Senate,elected to serve a four-year term. The office was created in 1868,abolished in 1875,and recreated in 1901. According to the current constitution,should the governor be out of the state for more than 20 days,the lieutenant governor becomes acting governor,and if the governor dies,resigns or is removed from office,the lieutenant governor ascends to the governorship. Earlier constitutions said the powers of the governor devolved upon the successor,rather than them necessarily becoming governor,but the official listing includes these as full governors. The governor and lieutenant governor are not elected on the same ticket.
William Mark Lanier is an American trial lawyer and founder and CEO of the Lanier Law Firm. He has led a number of high-profile product litigation suits resulting in billions of dollars in damages,including Johnson &Johnson baby powder and Merck &Co.'s Vioxx drug.
Johnny L. Ford is an American politician and mayor of Tuskegee,Alabama,and a former Alabama State Representative.
Exxon Shipping Co. v. Baker,554 U.S. 471 (2008),was a case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States. The Court ruled in a 5-3 decision that the punitive damages awarded to the victims of the Exxon Valdez oil spill should be reduced from $2.5 billion to $500 million.
The MTBE controversy concerns methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE),a gasoline additive that replaced tetraethyllead. MTBE is an oxygenate and raises gasoline's octane number. Its use declined in the United States in response to environmental and health concerns. It has polluted groundwater due to MTBE-containing gasoline being spilled or leaked at gas stations. MTBE spreads more easily underground than other gasoline components due to its higher solubility in water. Cost estimates for removing MTBE from groundwater and contaminated soil range from $1 billion to $30 billion,including removing the compound from aquifers and municipal water supplies,and replacing leaky underground oil tanks. Who will pay for remediation is controversial. In one case,the cost to oil companies to clean up the MTBE in wells belonging to the city of Santa Monica,California is estimated to exceed $200 million.
Stuart H. Smith was a controversial practicing plaintiff attorney licensed in Louisiana. Smith practiced law for more than 25 years,litigating against oil companies and other energy-related corporations for damages associated with radioactive oilfield waste. Smith was one of the lead legal strategists in on-going national litigation regarding the nation's drug-industry manufactured opioid crisis,having led the nation-wide effort to have the crisis’impact on opioid-dependent born children recognized as a special class deserving of dedicated,long-term response from those who caused the epidemic in the United States.
The Jacksonville,Maryland,ExxonMobil gas leak case is a series of lawsuits against ExxonMobil as a result of a February 2006 underground gasoline leak from an ExxonMobil service station in Jacksonville,Maryland.
Luther Johnson Strange III is an American lawyer and politician who served as a United States Senator from Alabama from 2017 to 2018. He was appointed to fill that position after it was vacated by Sen. Jeff Sessions upon Sessions's confirmation as U.S. Attorney General.
Andrew Sacks is the managing partner of the Philadelphia law firm Sacks Law,LLC. Best known for litigating against companies that damage the environment or injure people,Sacks successfully helped secure a $1.06 billion verdict against ExxonMobil in 2001. The company was found guilty of polluting land with radioactive material and the case is the largest private landowner contamination case in U.S. history.
William M. Beasley is an American politician from the state of Alabama. He is a Democratic member of the Alabama Senate,representing the 28th district.
The 1978 Alabama gubernatorial election took place on November 7,1978,to elect the governor of Alabama. Fob James,a businessman who had switched from the Republican Party to the Democratic Party and campaigned as a "born-again Democrat",won the Democratic primary in an upset over Attorney General Bill Baxley. He went on to defeat Guy Hunt in a landslide in the general election. Incumbent Democrat George Wallace was term limited and could not seek a third consecutive term;he later successfully ran again in 1982.
Christopher A. Seeger is an American lawyer who specializes in multidistrict mass tort and class action litigation. He received the most multidistrict litigation (MDL) appointments of any lawyer between 2016 and 2019 according to a 2020 ALM study. Seeger is a founding partner of the firm Seeger Weiss LLP.
The Exxon Mobil–New Jersey Environmental Pollution Settlement was a 2015 legal settlement between ExxonMobil and the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection,over contaminated sites at oil refinery plants and other facilities at Bayway Refinery in Linden and Bayonne Refinery in Bayonne,New Jersey dating back to the Standard Oil's use of the properties starting in the 1870s. The settlement was controversially settled by Governor Chris Christie's Administration for far less than the state originally sought when it began the lawsuit in 2004,and has been the subject of intense criticism from activists and environmentalists.
Hugh Morrow III was American politician who served as a member of the Alabama House of Representatives and Alabama State Senate,representing Jefferson County in the House the 12th district in the Senate.
