National Incident Command News

The January 11, 2011 report from the non-partisan National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling confirmed the Jones Act did not prevent foreign vessels from assisting with the clean-up effort during the Deep Water Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico last year. “Deep Water: The Gulf Oil Disaster and the Future of Offshore Drilling” was prepared by the independent entity at the request of President Barack Obama. “While decision makers did decline to purchase some foreign equipment for operational reasons ‒ for example, Dutch vessels that would have taken weeks to outfit and sail to the region, and a Taiwanese super-skimmer that was expensive and highly inefficient in the Gulf ‒ they did not reject foreign ships because of Jones Act restrictions…

The National Incident Command (NIC) stated that the cementing of the Macondo 252 well from the bottom, through the recently completed relief well, has been successful. The so-called “bottom kill” was declared final after completion of pressure tests. The NIC remains committed to continue aggressive efforts to clean up the oil that was discharged from the well and has not yet dissipated or been recovered. (Source: Bryant’s Maritime News)

"After months of extensive operations planning and execution under the direction and authority of the U.S. government science and engineering teams, BP has successfully completed the relief well by intersecting and cementing the well nearly 18,000 feet below the surface. With this development, which has been confirmed by the Department of the Interior's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, we can finally announce that the Macondo 252 well is effectively dead. Additional regulatory steps will be undertaken but we can now state, definitively, that the Macondo well poses no continuing threat to the Gulf of Mexico. From the beginning, this response has been driven by the best science and engineering available.

The Maritime Cabotage Task Force (MCTF) said that recent Jones Act criticism is false and is only distracting from the job of cleaning up the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Responding to these misleading and inaccurate claims, those leading and coordinating the response as well as independent news organizations have said that the Jones Act is not preventing or delaying foreign vessels’ ability to assist with cleaning the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The Jones Act mandates the use of American vessels and American workers in U.S. domestic maritime trade. However, it does not impede foreign oil skimmers, which are already being used in the clean-up effort. Retired U.S.

The Maritime Cabotage Task Force stated that it opposes legislation to repeal the Jones Act, saying that all the McCain bill would do is put more Americans out of work. “The McCain bill proposes to eliminate the very American industry that is helping to clean up the spill - an industry that supports 500,000 U.S. jobs - and outsource that work to foreign workers and foreign companies registered in nations like Liberia and the Marshall Islands that operate outside of American law. Using a spill caused by foreign companies as a pretext to bring in more foreign companies is a backward approach. It makes as much sense as replacing the American workers currently cleaning up the Gulf beaches with foreign companies and foreign workers.

Based on updated information and scientific assessments, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, and Chair of the National Incident Command’s Flow Rate Technical Group (FRTG) Dr. Marcia McNutt (Director of the U.S. Geological Survey) today announced an improved estimate of how much oil is flowing from the leaking BP well. Secretary Chu, Secretary Salazar, and Dr. McNutt convened a group of federal and independent scientists on Monday to discuss new analyses and data points obtained over the weekend to produce updated flow rate estimates. Working together, U.S. government and independent scientists estimate that the most likely flow rate of oil today is between 35,000 and 60,000 barrels per day.

The National Incident Command (NIC) has developed an Interactive Map of the response to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. It provides near-real time data on trajectory estimates for the oil slick and locations of deployed research vessels, oiled shorelines, wildlife data, and fishery area closures. View the map at: http://www.geoplatform.gov/gulfresponse/ (Source: Bryant’s Maritime News)

(June 11, 9:00 a.m. MODERATOR: Good morning. Welcome to today’s briefing. We’ll follow the standard format today. Admiral [Thad] Allen will give the daily update and then we’ll take 10 minutes of questions from the floor and 10 minutes from the phone. Admiral? ADMIRAL ALLEN: Thank you. Good morning. Since it’s Friday, I thought I’d review some of the basic numbers of the response and talk a little bit about some strategic issues regarding the skimmers which are becoming increasingly important in this response as it spreads out (inaudible). Be glad to answer any questions you may have for me at that point. Just to summarize where we’re at on this Friday regarding people—about 25,000 are on the ground down there. This has become the largest oil spill response in our nation’s history.

The Subcommittee on Energy and Environment of the House Committee on Science and Technology conducted a hearing on Research and Technology Needs for Oil Recovery and Effective Cleanup of Oil Spills. Committee Chair Bart Gordon (D-) made an opening statement. Subcommittee Chair Brian Baird (D-) made an opening statement. Mr. Douglas Helton, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), testified that NOAA is providing scientific information regarding oil spill trajectory and conducting natural resource damage assessments. Captain Anthony Lloyd, US Coast Guard, testified concerning the National Incident Command’s efforts to respond to the ongoing oil spill. Ms.

The following is a transcript from a May 1, 3:52 p.m. EDT, press briefing by Coast Guard Commandant Thad Allen, and Assistant to the President for Homeland Security John Brennan on ongoing response to the oil spill following the Deepwater Horizon incident. ADMIRAL ALLEN:  Thank you, Denis. Good afternoon to you all. This afternoon it was announced that I would be the National Incident Commander for this continuing response. I'd like to provide some context at the outset and make a couple of comments about myself personally and some background that I have. And then John Brennan will make some remarks. Regarding this incident, as you all know…