SHORE Act
Latest action · Jan 12, 2012 Referred to the Subcommittee on Energy and Environment.
Progress
Where this bill reached, and when. A stage with no date was not reached; one that failed a vote and later carried shows the date it carried.
- IntroducedDec 20, 2011
- Passed HouseNot reached
- Passed SenateNot reached
- To the PresidentNot reached
- Became lawNot reached
Summary
Securing Health for Ocean Resources and Environment Act or the SHORE Act - Requires the Under Secretary for Oceans and Atmosphere to: (1) review the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) capacity to respond to oil spills; (2) be responsible for developing and maintaining oil spill trajectory modeling capabilities; (3) create and update NOAA's environmental sensitivity index products for each coastal area of the United States and for each offshore area that is leased or under consideration for leasing for offshore energy production; (4) review the current state of NOAA's capacity to monitor, map, and track subsea hydrocarbons; (5) establish a national information center on oil spills; (6) establish an initiative concerning the effects of oil spills resulting from aging and abandoned oil infrastructure; (7) develop an inventory of offshore abandoned or sunken vessels in the U.S. exclusive economic zone and identify priorities for potential preemptive removal of oil or other actions that may be effective to mitigate the risk of oil spills from such vessels; and (8) develop standard national protocols for oil spill response and clean up assessments and develop guidance and tools for oil spill responders.
Amends the Oil Pollution Act to: (1) revise provisions concerning the uses of the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, (2) establish a Gulf of Mexico Regional Citizens' Advisory Council to oversee and monitor facilities and tank vessels and establish offices in Gulf States, and (3) revise limits on liability and removal costs of responsible parties with respect to discharge of oil into or upon the navigable waters or adjoining shorelines or the exclusive economic zone from single-hull and double-hull tank ships and barges.
Amends the Coastal Zone Management Act of 1972 to authorize the Secretary of Commerce to make grants to eligible coastal states to implement and revise specified policies and procedures for responding to oil spills.
Requires the Under Secretary, to: (1) establish a long-term marine environmental monitoring and research program for the marine and coastal environment of the Gulf of Mexico to assess impacts of the oil spill caused by Deepwater Horizon on trust resources (defined as natural resources belonging to, managed by, held in trust by, appertaining to, or otherwise controlled by the United States, any state, an Indian Tribe, or a local government); and (2) direct research and take action to improve the ability of the United States to conduct oil spill prevention, response, and recovery in Arctic waters.
Requires the Commandant of the Coast Guard to: (1) assess and take action to reduce the risk of, and improve the capability of the United States to respond to, a maritime disaster in the U.S. Beaufort and Chukchi Seas; (2) identify areas in waters in which routing or other navigational measures are warranted to reduce the risk of oil spills and potential damage to natural resources; and (3) analyze data on oil transported as cargo on vessels in U.S. navigable waters.
Requires the Secretary of the Department in which the Coast Guard is operating to: (1) require response plans approved by the Coast Guard under the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (commonly known as the Clean Water Act) to be updated at least once every five years and to utilize the best commercially available technology and methods to contain and remove a worst case discharge and to mitigate or prevent a substantial threat of such discharge, and (2) establish a program to evaluate and validate oil pollution containment and removal methods and technologies.
Amends the Clean Water Act to revise provisions concerning the national response system to discharges of oil and hazardous substances, including requiring the President to issue guidance for Area Committees to use with respect to the closing and reopening of fishing grounds following an oil spill.
Sets forth provisions concerning: (1) safety inspections of tank vessels that enter a U.S. port or place; (2) notices to states of transferring oil in bulk as cargo to, from, or within vessels; (3) notices to states and Indian tribes of marine casualties; and (4) publishing Incident Action Plans prepared and approved as a part of the response to an oil spill.
Establishes the Federal Oil Spill Research Committee to coordinate a program of oil pollution research, technology development, and demonstration.
Cosponsors 1
Members who signed on, in the order they did. All signed on Dec 20, 2011.
| Seat | Cosponsor | Signed on | |
|---|---|---|---|
| D-CA | Karen Bass | Original | Dec 20, 2011 |
Committees 3
Where it was sent and what each committee and subcommittee did with it, in order.
| Chamber | Committee | What it did |
|---|---|---|
| House | Transportation and Infrastructure Committee | Referred Dec 20, 2011 |
| Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Subcommittee | Referred Dec 21, 2011 | |
| Water Resources and Environment Subcommittee | Referred Dec 21, 2011 | |
| House | Science, Space, and Technology Committee | Referred Dec 20, 2011 |
| Energy Subcommittee | Referred Jan 12, 2012 | |
| House | Natural Resources Committee | Referred Dec 20, 2011 |
| Energy and Mineral Resources Subcommittee | Referred Jan 3, 2012 | |
| Fisheries, Wildlife, Oceans, and Insular Affairs Subcommittee | Referred Jan 3, 2012 |
Actions 7
Everything that happened, newest first.
- Jan 12, 2012Referred to the Subcommittee on Energy and Environment.
- Jan 3, 2012Referred to the Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources.
- Jan 3, 2012Referred to the Subcommittee on Fisheries, Wildlife, Oceans, and Insular Affairs.
- Dec 21, 2011Referred to the Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation.
- Dec 21, 2011Referred to the Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment.
- Dec 20, 2011Introduced in House
- Dec 20, 2011Referred to the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, and in addition to the Committees on Science, Space, and Technology, and Natural Resources, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned.
Research
What has been written about this bill: committee reports, cost estimates, the sponsor’s authority statement, printed hearings and the Congressional Research Service’s work.
Constitutional authority
The sponsor’s statement, as printed in the page H10016.
CRS reports 2
Congressional Research Service work that CRS links to this bill or the law it became, newest first.
Cite it 2
Products on other subjects that cite it, usually among other measures.
| Product | Title | Kind | Published |
|---|---|---|---|
| R41613 | Fishery, Aquaculture, and Marine Mammal Issues in the 112th Congress Archived | Report | Jan 22, 2013 |
| R41684 | Enacted and Proposed Oil Spill Legislation in the 112th Congress Archived | Report | Jan 16, 2013 |
Titles 3
Every title it has carried, official and short, at each stage.
- Official Title as Introduced
- To improve the ability of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Coast Guard, and coastal States to sustain healthy ocean and coastal ecosystems by maintaining and sustaining their capabilities relating to oil spill preparedness, prevention, response, restoration, and research, and for other purposes.
- Short Titles as Introduced
- SHORE Act
- Securing Health for Ocean Resources and Environment Act
Subjects
Assigned by the Library of Congress. Policy area: Environmental Protection.
- Accidents
- Advisory bodies
- Alabama
- Alaska
- Aquaculture
- Arctic and polar regions
- Bering Sea
- Coast guard
- Congressional oversight
- Department of Commerce
- Department of the Interior
- Ecology
- Education programs funding
- Emergency planning and evacuation
- Environmental assessment, monitoring, research
- Environmental Protection
- Environmental technology
- Florida
- Government information and archives
- Government lending and loan guarantees
- Government trust funds
- Gulf of Mexico
- Higher education
- Louisiana
- Marine and coastal resources, fisheries
- Marine and inland water transportation
- Marine pollution
- Mississippi
- Navigation, waterways, harbors
- Oil and gas
- Parks, recreation areas, trails
- Pollution liability
- Research administration and funding
- Research and development
- Technology assessment
- Texas
- Transportation employees
- Transportation safety and security
- Wildlife conservation and habitat protection
- Worker safety and health
Text 1
Each version as it was printed, newest first.
- Dec 20, 2011Introduced in House
Everything here is as published by Congress: the summary is the Congressional Research Service's, the action wording is the clerks', and the subjects are the Library of Congress's. How far it got is read from the actions themselves, taking the most recent one of each kind, so a bill that failed a vote and later passed is shown as having passed. Records come from this bill on Congress.gov and govinfo.gov; cost estimates are the Congressional Budget Office's, and the hearings are the printed hearings GovInfo publishes, which can appear months after the hearing.
