Obama has been posturing lately regarding BP's handling of the oil spill in the Gulf. Here's what he's not telling you.
Ever heard of the National Oil and Hazardous Substances Pollution Contingency Plan, or as it's better known, the National Contingency Plan (NCP)? Take a look at this overview---
http://www.epa.gov/oem/content/lawsregs/ncpover.htm
Be patient, it loads somewhat slowly.
Here are what some of the various Sections deal with: 300.110, the National Response Team; 300.115, Regional Response Teams; 300.135a, authorizes the predesignated On-Scene Coordinator to direct all federal, state, and private response activities at the site of a discharge. There are many other significant sections.
The current BP oil discharge meets the criteria for the NCP to kick in. So, a few questions arise, as follows.
1. Has the Executive Branch implemented the National Contingency Plan relative to the BP oil discharge in the Gulf?
2. If not, why not?
3. If so, who is the On-Scene Coordinator?
4. What agencies are being coordinated?
5. What is being accomplished by the Federal efforts?
The people along the Gulf Coast deserve answers. We all deserve answers. How about it, Mr. President?
[Thanks go to Alex for generating the idea for this piece.]
2 comments:
We need to empower the creative capacity of the entire world to efficiently develop solutions to this crisis. I think a good way to do that is through use of a wiki like Wikipedia. http://oilspill.wikia.com is a site doing that but is not well known.
The best solution is for the Unified Command to set up such a wiki and we should all call our reps in congress and demand as much. We should also demand that all relevant engineering data be released to give the motivated engineers and laypeople alike the information they need to develop the best solutions.
Not until we’ve done these things and empowered the collective intellect of the world can we begin to say all resources have been brought to bare on the crisis. The congressional switchboard number is (202)224-3121. You can call that and ask for your representative. The Unified Command suggestion number is 281.366.5511.
Thanks very much for your input.
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