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Tony Knowles on Corporations
2004 former Democratic Challenger for Senate (AK; previously served as Governor)
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Demand Exxon pay $4 billion in punitive damages to fishermen
KNOWLES: The candidates erupted into a brief but tense exchange when Knowles again pounded on Murkowski for supporting recent legislation passed by Congress that he says amounts to a $6.5 billion tax break for Exxon Mobil. Knowles has repeatedly said
Murkowski should have demanded the condition that Exxon pay $4.5 billion in punitive damages to thousands of fishermen affected by the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska’s Prince William Sound.MURKOWSKI: Murkowski reminded Knowles that
Exxon has said the company would not benefit at all, but Knowles refused to back down. “Exxon can say whatever it wants,” he said. “All you have to do is do the math. and you have $6.5 billion. That is a giveaway with no strings attached.”
Murkowski said that number was pure fabrication. Earlier Thursday, she wrote a letter to Knowles, demanding that he start “telling the truth” in the final days before the election.
Source: AK Senate Debate in Fairbanks Daily News-Miner
Oct 29, 2004
Force Exxon Mobil to pay punitive damages to Alaskans
Murkowski attacked Knowles for saying he wouldn’t support a bill that included fiscal incentives for the natural gas pipeline,
while Knowles berated Murkowski for not including provisions that would have forced Exxon Mobil to pay punitive damages to Alaskans for the 1989 oil spill.
Source: AK Senate Debate, Anchorage Daily News
Oct 27, 2004
Exxon must pay fishermen who were harmed by their spill
KNOWLES: Exxon, Knowles said, is getting a $6.5 billion tax break from the recent corporate tax bill, the same bill that carried two of the gas line incentives. The new law reduces the tax rate on income held in offshore accounts if companies bring the
money back to the US. “They got the award by just following Woody Allen’s law of 95 percent of life is just being there,” Knowles said.
To not attach some provision requiring payment of the punitive damages to Alaska’s 20,000 fishermen harmed by the spill “is unconscionable,” he said. MURKOWSKI: “You know, we all want to have the
Exxon Valdez issue behind us,” Murkowski responded. “We have waited far too long.” But the legislative branch of government should not cut off judicial proceedings, she said. “What happens next, who else do we cut off?” she asked.
Source: AK Senate Debate, in Fairbanks Daily News-Miner
Oct 20, 2004
Page last updated: Aug 15, 2011