Plan to Allow Unlimited Tanker Traffic in Puget Sound Blocked

The bill, written by the Chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Joe Barton (R-Texas), was another giveaway to the world's most profitable industry -- Big Oil -- and would do little to reduce gas prices.

Included in the bill was a provision that would have reversed the so-called Magnuson Amendment. The Magnuson Amendment, written by the late Senator Warren Magnuson in 1977, limits tanker traffic in the Puget Sound to what's required to fulfill demand in Washington State.

Magnuson knew that the Puget Sound risked becoming a "super port" for oil coming from Alaska, and wrote his amendment to protect the Sound from the threat of oil spills.

Barton's bill would have eliminated any restriction on tanker traffic in the Sound, opening it up to unlimited traffic and the corresponding risk of catastrophic spills. The provision was likely added at the request of British Pretroleum, which is currently defending itself against a lawsuit saying it violated the Magnuson Amendment.

Jay Inslee, Washington's only Representative on the Energy and Commerce Committee, introduced an amendment to strike the provision, but it failed on a party-line vote. This vote did, however, help shed public light on the nefarious provision, putting public pressure on Republicans to remove it from the bill.

Inslee and Norm Dicks then took their case to the Rules Committee, directly asking Republican Leadership to back off of their position. Eventually, with increased public pressure and a bipartisan coalition of Washington State Members of Congress supporting the effort, the Republican leadership agreed to remove the tanker provision before the bill went to the House floor.