THE STATES/BC OIL SPILL TASK FORCEAN—INTERNATIONAL MODEL FOR FORMULATING AND INFLUENCING PUBLIC POLICY

Abstract

ABSTRACT The States/British Columbia Oil Spill Task Force was established in 1989 to enhance spill coordination among the West Coast states and British Columbia, and to address a number of issues that became apparent during the Nestucca barge and Exxon Valdez oil spills. Task Force members are the directors of the oil spill prevention and response agencies in Alaska, British Columbia, California, Oregon, and Washington. The Task Force has become a national model for facilitating cooperation and building consensus between coastal states and provinces and their federal governments. In October of 1990, the task force issued a report containing a comprehensive set of recommendations addressing oil spill prevention, preparedness, and response. The group had achieved remarkable consensus, and many of the report's recommendations have been included in recent legislation enacted by the member states. The success of the task force's approach to regional coordination has also reduced the need for a proposed Pacific Oceans Resources Interstate Compact, which has been proposed to expand the states' role in areas of regulation that are otherwise federally preempted. The task force has become an effective mechanism for developing vigorous, productive relationships between government agencies, industry, and the public in both the United States and Canada. It has created important linkages between state/provincial and federal regulatory activities; for example, by providing input to Coast Guard and EPA rulemaking that implemented the Oil Pollution Act of 1990. It also assisted in assuring a well-coordinated international response to the July 1991 Tenyo Maru oil spill outside the Strait of Juan De Fuca between Washington and British Columbia. The task force is continuing to advance its goals of promoting public policy on oil spill prevention; cooperative management of major spills by government and industry; protection of the states/provincial rights and their natural and economic resources; and inter-governmental consistency in regulations adopted for oil spill prevention, contingency planning, and resource damage assessment.