United States v. Nature's Way Marine, L.L.C.

JENNIFER WALKER ELROD, Circuit Judge:

This appeal presents us with a question of statutory interpretation. Specifically, we must determine whether the district court was correct in its summary judgment determination that Nature's Way, as the owner of a tugboat, was also "operating" an oil barge that the tugboat was moving at the time of a collision, as the term is *418 used in the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (OPA). Because we agree that the ordinary and natural meaning of "operating" under the statute would apply to the exclusive navigational control that Nature's Way exercised over the barge at the…