When the Exxon Valdez spilled more than 11 million gallons of oil into Alaska’s Prince William Sound in 1989, Exxon President Lee Raymond oversaw the cleanup and a US$1 billion federal settlement for the extensive damage to the coastline and wildlife. Afterward, he helped lead a 14-year legal battle that ultimately got courts to cut a $5 billion punitive damages award for business and property owners harmed by the spill to $500 million.
Along the way, Raymond denounced environmentalists as “extremists” and “ideologues,” falsely blaming them for exacerbating a disaster that investigators attributed to errors by the ship’s crew.
