Our Government Slowed Down the Gulf Cleanup
Ernest Istook /
Our own government has quietly admitted that America needs foreign help to handle the oil spill — almost two months after pushing that help away.
Far more oil could have been intercepted before it fouled the Gulf Coast. So why hasn’t our government apologized?
By refusing foreign assistance, we banned both the latest technology and cleanup vessels that far exceed the capacity of America’s oil spill response vessels (OSRV’s). We rejected ships with ten times the capability of the vessels we used instead.
In a quiet announcement on June 18, the Federal On-Scene Coordinator (FOSC) finally agreed that we need help, describing a conclusion reached two days before:
. . . the FOSC, in coordination with other federal agencies, determined on June 16, 2010, pursuant to 46 U.S.C. §55113, that there are an insufficient number of specialized oil skimming vessels in the U.S. to keep pace with the unprecedented levels of oil discharges in the Gulf of Mexico. Based upon this determination, foreign specialized skimming vessels may be deployed to response operations.