Anchorage Daily News

Exxon owns Congress, high court

What's the true value of Exxon? Let's boil it down to a few words.

Lives and businesses destroyed: thousands.

Price of a barrel of oil: $130.

One year's net profit: $40 billion.

Owning Congress and the Supreme Court: priceless.

-- Steve Clay

Wasilla

Plenty of shame to go around

The U.S. Supreme Court has let Exxon off the hook with chump change after nearly 20 years. The company attorneys probably made more in legal fees keeping Alaskans at bay than the final figure awarded the plaintiffs. How much did Exxon's CEO take home as a bonus in 2007? Shame, shame on Exxon, and the Supreme Court.

-- Sandi Sumner

Florissant, Colo.

(formerly Eagle River)

Hope Legislature has long memory

When it comes time to award oil companies in Alaska drilling rights, I hope the legislators remember how Exxon treated the citizens of Alaska.

-- Richard Mower

Soldotna

There's no justice for plaintiffs

As a fisherman involved in the litigation, I expected this case to be a "no brainer" and that the U.S. justice system would prevail on behalf of the little guy. Little did I know in 1989 that I would be sitting at a keyboard nearly 20 years later reflecting on the failures of the U.S. justice system. Fishermen/plaintiffs have lost 20 percent of our troops while this conflict has been waged from one courthouse to the next.

Some fisheries in Alaska never truly recovered after 1989. You can still find oil buried on beaches. Fishermen have been "on hold" financially with regard to retirement planning, and have forgone scores of unquantifiable opportunities while Exxon has played the court system to its own end.

When my fishing season was canceled in 1989 due to the oil spill, my oldest daughter could not understand why I had to break my promise to take her out on my boat with me as a deckhand. No amount of money can compensate for the destruction to the environment. No amount of money can ever heal that broken promise, or dry the tears of 20 years shed by fishermen, Alaskans and the world.

-- Frank Mullen

Homer

Exxon still needs to be punished

To punish Exxon for its actions, we should cut all ties to doing business with it, until it agrees to pay for the damages it caused by hiring Joseph Hazelwood, a known alcoholic.

Don't let it do business in Alaska until it does the right thing.

-- Ralph Rastopsoff

Anchorage

Victim mentality needs to go

I was well into adulthood (well, 35 anyway) when I learned to my great surprise that punitive damages are awarded to plaintiffs and their lawyers, not to the public. I had imagined in my naivete that plaintiffs are compensated for actual damages and law fees incurred, while punitive damages, which are after all another matter entirely and are intended to alter future behavior, go straight to the public treasury. Silly me.

Over the years, the emerging wrong-mindedness of this arrangement has earned it a name of its own, "jackpot justice." Jackpot justice is about as character-deforming as lotteries, pull tabs, paycheck loans and subprime mortgages. Your newspaper ran a David Brooks column about these recently, a column worth digging out of the recycle bin and rereading.

Perhaps someday, if the general public were to benefit from punitive damages, courts would be more inclined to allow punitive damages that actually deter.

While I am sensitive to the fishermen's disappointment after waiting 20 years for a Great Pumpkin who never came, I hope the victim mentality in the air will disperse faster than the spilled oil has.

-- Diane Pleninger

Anchorage

Alaskans got what they voted for

I read with dismay the news that the Supreme Court drastically reduced the Exxon Valdez verdict, and the accompanying interviews of your state's citizens expressing their disappointment and outrage.

I have to wonder about those folks. Are they really surprised? Alaska is a Republican state. You got the president you wanted in 2000, and he packed the Supreme Court with the people he wanted. They don't care about the citizens of Alaska -- they care about big business. This can't be news to you.

I am disgusted on your behalf that the settlements received will amount to a drop in the bucket for a company that made $10 billion in profits last quarter. I can't help but think, however, that Alaskans should be careful what they wish for in our next presidential candidate. Elections do matter!

-- Toni Cleland

Eugene, Ore.

It's time Alaskans vote for change

What a surprise it was to read the Exxon Valdez ruling by the Supreme Court, 5 to 3 in favor of reducing the damages due to an issue with maritime law, carefully nonsubstantive for any other rulings regarding punitive damages. In other words, to heck with individual rights, and all hail big business and big oil.

Yes, I'm being sarcastic. Alaska has been a "red"-- Republican -- state in the presidential elections for as long as I recall. Who chooses the Supreme Court justices with their associated biases? The president, of course. Of the five who voted against the people of Alaska, three were selected by the Bush family, and two by Reagan. That's 100 percent.

Electing pro big business candidates results in pro big business rulings by the Supreme Court. That's simple.

Many Alaskans are upset. Did those folks vote for Bush or Reagan? If so, well, they should have paid attention in civics class.

It's too late for the Alaska fishing industry. But for the rest of us, if you want change, by all means vote for change.

-- Stephen King

Anchorage

Exxon shouldn't have to pay a dime

Exxon shouldn't have had to pay a single dime in punitive damages. It took immediate responsibility for the spill and spared no cost or manpower to take care of the problem and hired fishermen and boats and paid them plenty. All this greed from Alaskans makes me sick that I was born there. Every state should be so lucky as to have a company like Exxon carrying the load. When was the last time any of you taxpayers had to pay state income or sales tax?

-- Gary E. Emard

Sequim, Wash.

Hey, we voted for Republicans

I've been listening to the uproar and anger concerning the Exxon verdict. However, I can't help wondering how many of these folks voted for the pro big corporation Republicans who later appointed the pro big business justices to the court? Elections have consequences.

-- Jay Lawrence

Anchorage

Alaskans have been so naive

As a former Alaska resident and longtime observer of Alaska history, politics and culture, I greeted the news of the recent Supreme Court decision regarding the Exxon Valdez spill with sadness and a bitter sense of justice and inevitability.

As long as Alaska governors, legislators and voters believe, or pretend to believe, that multinational corporations -- from Exxon Mobil to Northern Dynasty -- mean well, have Alaska's best interests at heart, and really won't do any harm, such devastation of families, communities, ecosystems and economies is and will continue to be inevitable.

I hope that someday Alaskans will know better.

-- Scott Brennan

Bozeman, Mont.

Wake up and vote Democrat

We've all mucked it up again. While the higher-ups have had us arguing about abortion, the Supreme Court sided with Exxon against the little people. When will we wake up and understand that they are trying to sidetrack us with issues like abortion and gay rights that usually have very little to do with our daily lives? In the meantime, higher-ups stack the court with pro big business justices who will change all of our lives when it comes to our livelihood, clean air, children, etc. Wake up, people, and vote Democrat in November.

-- Elizabeth A. Carmer

Denali State Park

From the comments posted at adn.com

If you actually read the ruling, they made a fairly reasoned case for their decision. What they focused on was the exxon valdez case being so far out of the norm of 1 to 1 with compensatory damages.

Punitive damages are meant to alter behavior of bad actors, not to give people as much as they expected. I believe exxon has altered its behavior and upgraded their equipment etc. in response to all this so it seemed to work.

If the original claim had been upheld, the lawyers would have gotten more than a billion dollars out of this deal. I really don't have any sympathy for them.

-- truthseeker

The Court is putting realism back into the American consciousness.

Overt lawsuits that enrich Lawyers is coming to an end.

The fact that the Alaskan fisherman (the hardest working people on this earth) did not gain as much as thought should keep in mind that $503 million plus interest is nothing to sneeze at.

My take (on the right damage award) is roughly 0. This is a good deal for the fisherman.

-- aklarro

Republican voters -- and Bush -- got exactly the Supreme Court they asked for; activist right-wing corporate apologists. Congratulations!

-- dallison

Republicans and conservatives made Alaska the greatest state in the union. You loser leftists screw up everything you touch. Fortunately, voters have figured that out too.

-- blue_gold907

To avoid paying punitive damages Exxon Mobile fervently sought to find the weakest link in our judicial system -- and they found it: the Supreme Court.

-- geomatz

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