Walter B. Parker Act, which was signed into law in 1980 by U.S. President Jimmy Carter. On March 24, 1989, the Exxon Valdez oil tanker struck Bligh Reef in Prince William Sound, spilling an estimated 260,000 to 750,000 barrels of crude oil. The Exxon Valdez oil spill was a major environmental disaster for the state. Governor Steve Cowper, who held office at the time of the spill, appointed Walter Parker as the chairman of the Alaska Oil Spill Commission in 1989. The Alaska Oil Spill Commission was created by the Alaska state government to investigate the causes of the Exxon Valdez oil spill.
Exxon Valdez oil spill contracted during the actual crisis. Several weeks after the spill, "Saturday Night Live" aired a pointed sketch featuring Kevin Nealon, Phil Hartman, and Victoria Jackson as cleanup workers struggling to scrub the oil off of animals and rocks on a beach in Prince William Sound. In the 1995 film "Waterworld", the "Exxon Valdez" is the flagship of the movie's villain, "The Deacon," the leader of a band of scavenging raiders. In the ship is a portrait of their patron saint, Joseph Hazelwood. In the second Forrest Gump novel, "Gump and Co." by Winston Groom, Gump commandeers the "Exxon Valdez" and