Judge Orders Exxon, Governments To Resolve Valdez Spill Claim gCaptain Total Views: 101 March 9, 2011 A federal judge has ordered Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM), the U.S. Department of Justice and the state of Alaska to expedite talks on a 2006 claim by the federal and state governments for $92 million to restore coastal areas damaged by the Exxon Valdez oil tanker spill in 1989. Late Monday, U.S. District Court Judge H. Russel Holland rejected a request by a retired university professor to file a “friend of the court” brief in the governments’ decades-old case against Exxon. The judge noted that the case has been closed since 1991, when the governments and Exxon reached an agreement. However, Holland also acknowledged that the case appeared unresolved. He asked the governments and Exxon to resolve the 2006 claim and any other pending issues. As part of the 1991 agreement, Exxon paid $900 million in civil damages and agreed to pay as much as $100 million in additional funds to cover environmental damage caused by the spill that wasn’t initially known. In 2006, the federal and Alaska governments invoked the “reopener clause” in the settlement and billed Exxon for $92 million to cover the cost of removing larger-than-expected amounts of crude oil that remained on beaches near Valdez in Prince William Sound. The governments said at the time that the results of pending scientific studies might change the amount the governments would ultimately request. Richard Steiner, a retired marine conservation professor at the University of Alaska, unsuccessfully filed a motion to reopen the case, then asked the court for permission to file a “friend of the court” brief, in an effort to get Exxon to pay the $92 million in environmental mitigation claims, plus interest. Steiner, who has studied killer whales and other Alaska marine wildlife, said in an interview that several species of whales, birds and other wildlife have not recovered from the Valdez oil spill, the nation’s second-larges