Analysis of Future Coast Guard's Resource Needs for Responding to Oil Spills

Gao ID: CED-79-32 January 12, 1979

Upon Congressional request, GAO studied the responsiveness by the Coast Guard to oil spills and their future ability to meet future oil spill emergencies. The Transportation System Center of the Department of Transportation has studied the issue and GAO's report evaluated that study.

Only data from the last 4 years was used for the DOT study due to unreliability of the information. GAO feels these data are inadequate to confidently project one single monetary estimate of the Coast Guard's future oil spill needs. The estimates that were provided were higher than the figures arrived at by GAO. Improved oil spill technology, disaster assistance from the private sector, and stricter measures requested by the President governing vessel safety technology and oil spill prevention implies that the future estimates of the Coast Guard's needs will not be as high as DOT projected.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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