While we are thrilled that Senator Cantwell is proposing this, there are a vast amount of prevention measures we’d love to see her taking on as much as cures that really won’t prevent significant and irreversible harm in the first place. But progress is good on this front. – Editor
U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) has introduced legislation to jumpstart research and development into new oil spill response technology. Her bill – the Oil Spill Research and Technology Act of 2012 (S. 3298) – would create grants to support the research and development of new technologies to better contain and clean up all types of oil spills. In addition, the bill requires the United States Coast Guard to establish a program to evaluate and implement ‘best available technology’ to effectively respond to and clean up oil spills.