Spill Response and Prevention Surety Act
Latest action · Mar 25, 2019 Read twice and referred to the Committee on Finance.
Progress
Where this bill reached, and when. A stage with no date was not reached; one that failed a vote and later carried shows the date it carried.
- IntroducedMar 25, 2019
- Passed SenateNot reached
- Passed HouseNot reached
- To the PresidentNot reached
- Became lawNot reached
Summary
Spill Response and Prevention Surety Act
This bill provides support for responding to oil spills.
Specifically, it makes permanent and modifies the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, which provides funds to pay removal costs and claims for damages resulting from oil spills into navigable waters of the United States. Under current law, the fund is financed primarily by an excise tax on domestic crude oil and imported petroleum products. The bill expands the definition of crude oil for purposes of such tax to include any bitumen or bituminous mixture as well as any oil derived from a bitumen or bituminous mixture.
The bill revises requirements governing the use of the funds. For example, the bill doubles the limit placed on expenditures from the fund that may be used for (1) any single incident, or (2) natural resource damages.
In addition, the bill allows the fund to be used for carrying out grant programs established by this bill. The Department of Homeland Security must biennially award grants to eligible institutions of higher education for oil spill response research and technology development activities and programs as well as oil spill prevention activities and programs. Grants may also be given to states for oil spill prevention activities and programs.
Cosponsors 1
Members who signed on, in the order they did. All signed on Mar 27, 2019.
| Seat | Cosponsor | Signed on | |
|---|---|---|---|
| R-AK | Lisa Murkowski | Mar 27, 2019 |
Actions 2
Everything that happened, newest first.
- Mar 25, 2019Introduced in Senate
- Mar 25, 2019Read twice and referred to the Committee on Finance.
Subjects
Assigned by the Library of Congress. Policy area: Environmental Protection.
- Congressional oversight
- Education programs funding
- Environmental assessment, monitoring, research
- Environmental Protection
- Government trust funds
- Great Lakes
- Higher education
- Inflation and prices
- Lakes and rivers
- Marine and inland water transportation
- Marine pollution
- Navigation, waterways, harbors
- Oil and gas
- Pollution liability
- Research administration and funding
- Sales and excise taxes
Text 1
Each version as it was printed, newest first.
- Mar 25, 2019Introduced in Senate
Everything here is as published by Congress: the summary is the Congressional Research Service's, the action wording is the clerks', and the subjects are the Library of Congress's. How far it got is read from the actions themselves, taking the most recent one of each kind, so a bill that failed a vote and later passed is shown as having passed. Records come from this bill on Congress.gov and govinfo.gov.