The debate comes as the BP Gulf oil spill has just displaced the Exxon Valdez incident in Alaska in 1989 as the worst oil spill in U.S. history based on updated estimates of the amount of oil flowing from the underwater well.

According to the Associated Press:

Even using the most conservative estimate, the new numbers mean the leak has grown to nearly 19 million gallons over the past five weeks, surpassing the size of the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster in Alaska, which at about 11 million gallons had been the nation’s worst spill. Under the highest Gulf spill estimate, nearly 39 million gallons may have leaked, enough to fill 30 school gymnasiums.

But her interview this week with Katie Couric no doubt caused shudders in Alaska. When asked to name a U.S. Supreme Court decision she didn’t agree with, Palin didn’t cite the one every Alaskan has waited 14 years for and which was announced in June: Exxon.

When the oil tanker Exxon Valdez went aground in 1989, it not only fouled Prince William Sound but another 1,000 miles of pristine coastline. The tourism industry didn’t suffer; those whose lives and livelihoods depended on a healthy marine ecosystem did. People like Palin and her husband, Todd, who fish for salmon in Bristol Bay. And like me at the time. That was my first year as a commercial fisherman.

An Anchorage jury in 1994 found Exxon negligent for putting a lapsed alcoholic at the helm of the tanker and called for punitive damages of $5 billion. It was a breathtaking amount, but the 11 million-gallon spill was a breathtaking event. Exxon officials said they would appeal the verdict all the way to the Supreme Court. They did.

For the next 15 years more than 30,000 Alaska fishermen and others injured by the Exxon’s negligence, including the residents of small villages where hunting and gathering from the sea is still a way of life, watched with despair as Exxon and its army of lawyers chipped away at the judgment. As Exxon appealed, challenged and appealed again at various levels of the justice system, the award was cut in half, to $2.5 billion. Over that same period, nearly one in five claimants died.

So it was a relief for Alaskans to see the case finally reach the Supreme Court in February. And a shock when the justices announced in June that Exxon didn’t deserve such punishment. They cut the award by 80 percent again, to $507 million.

As governor, Palin told The Anchorage Daily News in June she was deeply disappointed with the decision. The court “gutted the jury’s decision on punitive damages” and undercut one of the principal deterrents for marine shipping accidents in Alaska, she told the paper. She went on:

“It is tragic that so many Alaska fishermen and their families have had their lives put on hold waiting for this decision. My heart goes out to those affected, especially the families of the thousands of Alaskans who passed away while waiting for justice.”

You have to wonder why Palin couldn’t summon that memory when pressed by Couric, three months later, for “one Supreme Court decision you disagreed with.”

Alaskans should be appalled at forgetting the Exxon Valdez. For her brain freeze under pressure, the rest of the nation should be appalled, too.