OIL SPILL > Montana Governor's pullout of Unified Command Shows How Much We've Regressed

photo courtesy of scientificamerican.com

Governor Schweitzer of Montana withdrew the state from Unified Command, citing ExxonMobil's "secrecy" and communication failures. This is distressing because it is one more giant step away from unified and collaborative response. The whole concept behind NIMS and ICS is effective collaboration as a key to response effectiveness. But, I believe collaborative response is very much in danger, largely as a result of the federal response to Deepwater Horizon.

1. It now seems almost a political necessity to trash the Responsible Party. Admittedly, Big Oil is a pretty easy, juicy populist target. Gov. Schweitzer appears to have taken some lessons from President Obama in turning on and trashing the RP. It appears at this point that when the parties get together behind the scenes everything is lovey-dovey and then publicly the governor does all he can to discredit the company.  Yesterday, the head of gov and public affairs for ExxonMobil blogged about the collaboration: In meeting with some of the many individuals, agencies and officials on site here in Montana, I am continually impressed by the collaborative efforts in the cleanup operation. With their help, EMPCo is making real progress in the cleanup and response effort. But today that collaboration appears to be dead. I suspect that it continues on behind the scenes with good people doing all the kind to minimize the damage, but the political thinking seems to be that it is better for the public to perceive no collaboration.

2. EPA in charge. The EPA is making it very clear that it is in charge of the response. Release from today on the EPA website said: EPA is also directing and overseeing cleanup activities since arriving at the site. That means that EPA is also in charge of communications including media access and who attends what meetings. But the Governor says he is withdrawing because Exxon's media access restrictions and secret meetings. Something doesn't square here. My suspicion is the governor is angry with the federally-led response but finds it politically more acceptable to focus the blame on Exxon than EPA.  For more