Senate Panel Deals Big Blow to Oil Spill Bill

A proposal to assess oil companies hefty fees to build an oil spill clean-up fund and to make company employees and officials criminally liable for spills suffered a major setback in a state Senate panel Tuesday.

The Senate Natural Resources Committee, which generally is friendly to environmental causes, approved the measure to keep it alive, but with the understanding that the author will present a new, stringent bill.

The decision upset the plans of the measure’s backers--Lt. Gov. Leo McCarthy and Controller Gray Davis, both Democrats--who wanted to move it through the Legislature quickly so oil companies would have less time to pick it apart.

The bill’s author, Senate Democratic leader Barry Keene of Benicia, acknowledged that he may have to make major revisions to win approval of the Natural Resources Committee. Its members suggested less stringent criminal liability provisions and balked at giving the state Department of Fish and Game the authority over oil spill cleanup.

The plan, introduced in the wake of an 11-million-gallon oil spill from the Exxon Valdez in Alaska’s Prince William Sound, is expected to face an even tougher battle at its next stop, the Senate Appropriations Committee.