The Oil Spill Response Research (OSRR) Program provides research leadership to improve the capabilities for detecting and responding to an oil spill in the marine environment. The MMS is the principal United States government agency funding offshore oil spill response research. For more than 20 years, MMS has maintained a comprehensive, long-term research program to improve oil spill response technologies. This program has expanded the existing capabilities to respond to an open ocean oil spill.

The scope of MMS’s OSRR program was expanded in 1986 by aligning the MMS program with programs at Environment Canada (EC) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). To our knowledge, MMS and EC are the only national government agencies in North America conducting significant oil spill research and technology development programs. The EC is recognized for its expertise in chemical treating agents and detection. The NIST, our U.S. research partner, possesses expertise on in situ burning. The MMS itself maintains recognized expertise in oil spill preparedness, mechanical containment and recovery of spilled oil, and burning.

The MMS OSRR program is cooperative in nature, bring funding from research partners in government agencies, the oil industry, and from the international community. The OSRR Program routinely participates in thirty concurrent research and development projects. Many of these projects are Joint Industry Projects or JIP’s, where MMS leverages its research dollars. The program brings together expertise through cooperative research arrangements and contracts in all areas of oil spill response. The MMS has cooperated in the exchange of technological information with Canada, Norway, United Kingdom, Japan, Germany, and France through informal contacts, workshops, and technical meetings such as the biennial Oil Spill Conference.

Funding for the OSRR program and operation of Ohmsett – The National Oil Spill Response Test Facility are appropriated from the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund (OSLTF). The OSLTF receives funds from a $0.05 tax on each barrel of oil produced or imported into or out of the country. As intended by the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, the companies that produce and transport (the potential polluters) oil are supporting research to improve oil spill response capabilities.