[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:

------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                            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]
BILLING CODE 3510-12-P