[Federal Register Volume 59, Number 5 (Friday, January 7, 1994)]
[Proposed Rules]
[Pages 1190-1191]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 94-227]
[[Page Unknown]]
[Federal Register: January 7, 1994]
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DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
15 CFR Part 990
Natural Resource Damage Assessments
AGENCY: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA),
Commerce.
ACTION: Notice of cooperative prespill planning.
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SUMMARY: The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
wishes to announce that, in conjunction with the American Petroleum
Institute and Coastal States Organization, six regional workshops are
being co-sponsored to allow industry and trustees to begin planning for
cooperative natural resource damage assessments. These planning
sessions will be held immediately following the six regional public
meetings being held by NOAA on the proposed natural resource damage
assessment regulations, which are published in a separate notice in
this issue of the Federal Register. Participation in the workshops will
be limited to specific individuals to allow for meaningful discussions.
However, these meetings will be open to others interested in observing
the process. Those interested in more information should contact one of
the organizations listed below.
ADDRESSES: Written inquiries are to be submitted to: Damage Assessment
Regulations Team (DART), c/o NOAA/DAC, 1305 East-West Highway, SSMC #4,
10th Floor, Workstation #10218, Silver Spring, MD 20910.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Doug Helton, NOAA, 301-713-3038, ext.
197; Grayson Cecil, American Petroleum Institute, 703-464-9664; Ray
Perry, Coastal States Organization, 202-508-3860.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: In the event of an oil spill, the Oil
Pollution Act of 1990 (OPA), 33 U.S.C. 2701 et seq., provides that
federal, state, Indian tribal and/or foreign natural resource trustees
may determine natural resource injuries, assess natural resource
damages, present a claim, recover damages, and develop and implement a
plan for the restoration, rehabilitation, replacement, or acquisition
of the equivalent of the injured natural resources and their services
under their trusteeship. NOAA was directed by Congress to promulgate
regulations for the assessment of natural resource damages resulting
from a discharge of oil.
In order to foster cooperation between trustees and industry in
damage assessments, a series of six prespill planning workshops will be
held in 1994, following each of the NOAA regional rulemaking meetings
described in a separate notice in today's Federal Register. The
locations and schedules for these workshops as well as the NOAA
regulation review meetings are as follows:
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NOAA review Planning
Location meeting workshop
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New Orleans, LA......................... Jan. 10-11 Jan. 11-12
Chicago, IL............................. Jan. 12-13 Jan. 13-14
Atlanta, GA............................. Jan. 24-25 Jan. 25-26
Boston, MA.............................. Jan. 26-27 Jan. 27-28
San Francisco, CA....................... Feb. 7-8 Feb. 8-9
Seattle, WA............................. Feb. 9-10 Feb. 10-11
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These sessions will be limited to people from the trustee and
industry communities who are familiar with natural resource damage
assessment issues and are prepared to represent the views of their
government or organization. However, these meetings will be open to
others interested in observing the process. The co-sponsors believe
that the workshops will be a positive first step toward producing
agreed upon ground rules for cooperative natural resource damage
assessments. By the same token, they recognize that much will remain to
be done afterward. To make cooperative natural resource damage
assessment a reality, follow-up efforts will be required.
The central premise of these workshops is that a cooperative
approach to damage assessment, as opposed to an adversarial one, will
benefit both trustees and industry and will lead to earlier restoration
of the injured resources. However, because there is no statutory
mandate to plan for cooperative damage assessments in OPA, development
of such a process will have to proceed from a realization by both
industry and trustees that the alternative of costly litigation is both
inefficient and ineffective.
In the exigency of an oil spill, often the best intentions of
trustees and responsible parties are waylaid by the need for hurried
decisions. It is more productive to approach a spill with a vigorous
plan for cooperation between trustees and responsible parties. If, in
the event of a spill, the representatives of the parties have met
beforehand and, even tentatively, considered the ground rules for
working cooperatively in a scientific investigation aimed toward early
recovery of the environment, there is a significantly better chance
that litigation can be avoided. Such an approach must involve the
planning and development of a model for cooperation before the time of
an oil spill, a model that can be applied across the nation. The
workshops will consider the draft documents necessary to develop such a
model.
Dated: December 30, 1993.
Katharine W. Kimball,
Deputy Assistant Secretary for Oceans and Atmosphere.
[FR Doc. 94-227 Filed 1-4-94; 8:45 am]
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