Title: Reporting Oil Spills: Everything You Need To Know
Headings: Reporting Oil Spills: Everything You Need To Know
Reporting Oil Spills: Everything You Need To Know
Reporting Oil Spills: Everything You Need To Know
Oil Spills: Everything You Need To Know
Understanding Oil Spills
How to Report
EPA Oil Spill Program Contacts
How Reports Are Handled
Overview of the Oil Pollution Act of 1990
Discharge of Oil Regulation (40 CFR 110)
Oil Spill Reporting Exemptions
Properly Functioning Vessel Engines
Research and Development Releases
NPDES-Permitted Releases
Discharges Permitted Under MARPOL
More links

Content: The OPA improved the nation's ability to prevent and respond to oil spills by establishing provisions that expand the federal government's ability, and provide the money and people necessary, to respond to oil spills. The OPA also created the national Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, which is available to provide up to one billion dollars per spill incident. In addition, the OPA provided new requirements for contingency planning both by government and industry. The National Oil and Hazardous Substances Pollution Contingency Plan (NCP) has been expanded in a three-tiered approach: the Federal government is required to direct all public and private response efforts for certain types of spill events; Area Committees -- composed of federal, state, and local government officials -- must develop detailed, location-specific Area Contingency Plans; and owners or operators of vessels and certain facilities that pose a serious threat to the environment must prepare their own facility response plans. Finally, the OPA increased penalties for regulatory noncompliance, broadened the response and enforcement authorities of the Federal government, and preserved State authority to establish law governing oil spill prevention and response. In 1973, EPA issued the Oil Pollution Prevention regulation, which is codified at 40 CFR Part 112, to address the oil spill prevention provisions contained in the Clean Water Act of 1972. The regulation forms the basis of EPA's oil spill prevention, control, and countermeasures, or SPCC, program, which seeks to prevent oil spills from certain aboveground and underground storage tanks.