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.
History of the oil tanker the newly discovered oil fields in Texas — such as Spindletop — and Oklahoma, which gave opportunities for new oil companies as Gulf Oil and Texas Fuel Company, later Texaco. Avoiding the use of Standard Oil's pipe line system, they started using tankers to get their oil to the East Coast. In combination with the oil fields discovered in Mexico and Venezuela, this caused a rise in the demand for tankers, which gave opportunities for the first independents, such as the Norwegian Wilh. Wilhelmsen, that launched its first tanker in 1913. The fleet oiler , launched on April 17, 1915,