Oil Cleanup

The Oil Pollution Act (OPA) was signed into law in August 1990, largely in response to rising public concern following the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska's Prince William Sound. OPA is the most recent and the most comprehensive effort by Congress to deal with the harmful environmental impacts of oil spills. These efforts began with enactment of what is now Section 311 of the Clean Water Act in 1970, in response to an oil spill off the coast of Santa Barbara, California.

Oil cleanup enforcement is directed at parties responsible for oil spills and threatened oil spills. It may include administrative cleanup orders and/or judicial actions for injunctive relief, enforcement of cleanup orders, or recovery of cleanup costs expended by the government. Oil regulatory enforcement includes administrative and judicial penalty actions for oil spills and violations of the spill prevention control and countermeasure (SPCC) program and other regulatory requirements.

Visit EPA's Oil Spills Program page if you are looking for information about:

• Overview of the program
• Preventing oil spills
• Preparing for oil spills
• Responding to oil spills

The Coast Guard National Response Center (NRC) serves as the sole national point of contact for reporting oil and hazardous substance discharges to the environment. Spills should be reported to the NRC at its toll-free number: 1-800-424-8802.

The OPA improved the nation's ability to prevent and respond to oil spills by establishing provisions that expand the federal government's authority, and provide the money and resources necessary, to respond to oil spills. The OPA also consolidated several existing oil spill response funds into the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, which is available to provide up to one billion dollars per spill incident. Useful information on administering the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund can be found by visiting The Coast Guard National Pollution Funds Center (NPFC) web site.

The OPA broadened the response and enforcement authorities of the Federal government, added or increased penalties for violations of cleanup orders and for regulatory noncompliance, and preserved State authority to establish law governing oil spill prevention and response. A number of the changes made by OPA were in the form of amendments to Section 311 of the Clean Water Act.

In October 1991 the President issued Executive Order 12777 delegating the authority for implementing and enforcing provisions of the OPA to various Federal agencies and departments, including EPA and the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG). Among the authorities delegated to EPA was responsibility for response and enforcement actions related to discharges and threatened discharges of oil in the "inland zone" of the United States.

In 1997 EPA's Office of Site Remediation Enforcement issued "Final Guidance on the Issuance of Administrative Cleanup Orders under Sections 311(c) and (e) of the Clean Water Act."  (PDF, 84.1 KB)

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