Oil Spill: The government's response. [View All]

[johnaries]

Updated 2:42 p.m. ET
Despite today's focus on the response to the the April 20 Gulf Coast oil rig explosion, Obama administration officials stress that federal agencies have been involved since the start.

President Obama said Friday morning that his administration is doing "everything necessary" to respond. Officials have classified the situation as an "incident of national significance," officially defined as an event that requires a coordinated response to minimize damage, save lives and plan for long-term economic recovery. The government's National Response Team -- composed of 16 federal agencies and departments -- coordinates the federal response.

Details of some individual agencies and their response in article.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/federal-eye/2010/04/oil_spill_the_governments_resp.html

And from the White House Blog:

The response to the BP Oil Spill began as an emergency search and rescue mission by the U.S. Coast Guard and other partners on April 20.

Concurrently, command center operations were stood up immediately in the Gulf Coast to begin also addressing the environmental impact of the incident.

The morning after the explosion, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar deployed Deputy Secretary David J. Hayes down to the gulf to assist with coordination and response to the incident.

The Administration immediately began holding regular calls with BP leadership and numerous senior-level meetings have been held between the administration and BP to discuss BP's response effort and federal oversight and support.

More: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/05/01/response-oil-spill-5110