Live From the Gulf: The Coast Guard’s Perspective

James Carafano / August 02, 2010

The last time I traveled to Louisiana to observe the oil spill response, I spent a good deal of time with state and local disaster response officials and the state’s National Guard. On this visit I got to see the problem from the perspective of the federal responders, particularly the Coast Guard.

Under the Oil Spill Act of 1990, the Coast Guard is responsible for coordinating the national response to major oil spills. They work with the company responsible for the spill, in this case BP, to affect the clean-up, though as Admiral Paul Zukunft, the unified area commander for the response (the Federal on-scene coordinator) noted, “when it comes to deciding what to do the Coast Guard gets 51 percent of the vote.”

Looking at the problem from both sides here are a few points with which I think all parties involved would agree: (more…)