Maine's Coastal Conveyance of Oil Act: Jurisdictional Consideration

Maine's Coastal Conveyance of Oil Act is the most comprehensive oil discharge control law in the United States. Such broad regulatory legislation inevitably raises questions of constitutionality and, as expected, the oil industry has brought a challenge to the Maine statute. In American Oil Co. et al. v. Environmental Improvement Commission, a declaratory judgment action, the Maine act has been alleged to violate the commerce, due process, equal protection and admiralty clauses of the United States Constitution. Although each allegation of constitutional conflict raises substantial problems, the most troublesome attack is that based upon the admiralty clause. Here the basic assertion is that Article III, section 2, of the United States Constitution deprives the State of Maine of the power to effect substantive changes in admiralty law. Thus, the argument runs, any intrusion on maritime jurisdiction by state legislation is forbidden by the Constitution because of the exclusive grant of admiralty jurisdiction to the federal courts. Thus, in two ways the Maine statute is postured as violating exclusive and uniform federal control in admiralty jurisdiction. It is the contention of this comment that, although the Maine Coastal Conveyance of Oil Act constitutes substantive admiralty law, it supplements pre-existing federal rules of liability without seriously harming the federal interest in uniformity. Thus, as an exercise of police power, the Maine legislation is constitutionally sound under the modern interest balancing theory of federal-state admiralty relations. Maine's interest in preserving her environment and the livelihood of great numbers of her people is eminently justifiable. Further, the Maine Act complements the Federal Water Quality Improvement Act in response to Congressional design. This federal legislation does not and was not intended to preempt state action such as that enacted by the State of Maine.