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About OR&R
Prepare • Respond • Restore • Recover
The origins of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Office of Response and Restoration (OR&R) date back to 1976 when the U.S. Coast Guard asked NOAA scientists to support operational decisions during an oil spill that resulted from a tanker grounding near Nantucket Shoals, Massachusetts. In 1999, OR&R was officially created to optimize NOAA's pollution response and restoration activities. The guiding mandates serve as the foundation for our current mission and vision.
Our Vision:
The NOAA Office of Response and Restoration envisions the nation’s ocean, coasts, and economies as clean and healthy - protected and restored from environmental threats for future generations.
Our Mission:
OR&R's mission is to support clean, healthy coasts and economies. Working across four core pillars of preparedness, response, restoration, and recovery, OR&R delivers its mission to address a range of hazards such as oil, chemical, and marine debris.
OR&R Mandates and Services
Oil and Chemical Spill Response
The nation has a comprehensive set of authorities for preparedness, response, and restoration from oil and hazardous substance spills and waste sites based upon the Clean Water Act (CWA), the Oil Pollution Act (OPA) of 1990, and the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA).
These laws created a comprehensive prevention, response, liability, and compensation regime for oil and hazardous substance spills further detailed in regulation, including the National Oil and Hazardous Substance Pollution Contingency Plan (NCP) and Natural Resource Damage Assessment rules for oil and hazardous substances. Together, these laws and regulations along with several Presidential Directives pertaining to disaster preparedness and response assign NOAA and other agencies a range of functions that comprise this comprehensive system.
Key services:
- Provide scientific expertise and coordination of NOAA services to support incident preparedness and response
- During incident preparedness and response, represent NOAA trust resources
- Partner and communicate with federal and state agencies to coordinate capabilities and advise the Incident Command
- Develop pollution fate, modeling, and response information and planning tools
Oil and Chemical Natural Resource Restoration
Under laws such as OPA, CWA, CERCLA, and the National Marine Sanctuaries Act, NOAA is a trustee for the public’s natural resources. OR&R is charged with protecting and restoring these resources when impacted by oil and chemical spills, hazardous waste sites, and vessel groundings in national marine sanctuaries.
Accompanying and extending beyond response and remedial action is the natural resource damage assessment process which aims to restore injured natural resources and lost public use to make the environment and public whole following an oil or hazardous substance spill or substantial threat.
Key services:
- Use science to understand and account for the effects of hazardous waste pollution, oil spills, and ship groundings
- Hold polluters accountable for natural resource injuries and recover funds for restoration through the NOAA Damage Assessment, Remediation, and Restoration Program (DARRP)
- Measure impacts to habitats, natural resources, and their services, including human uses
- Develop cutting-edge assessment techniques
- Create Damage Assessment and Restoration Plans (DARP)
- Lead and coordinate Natural Resource Trustee teams
- Operate spatial data and environmental data warehouse systems from response through restoration
Marine Debris Prevention and Removal
Congress authorized the NOAA Marine Debris Program through the Marine Debris Act in 2006. This Act requires the program to “identify, determine sources of, assess, prevent, reduce, and remove marine debris and address the adverse impacts of marine debris on the economy of the United States, the marine environment, and navigation safety.”
Based on amendments and reauthorizations in 2012, 2018, and 2020, the NOAA OR&R Marine Debris Division administers the Marine Debris Program. Its components have expanded to include national and regional coordination to address marine debris, development of interagency plans to respond to severe marine debris events, and support for international efforts to combat marine debris.
Most recently, the Save Our Seas 2.0 Act of 2020 enhanced U.S. domestic programs to address marine debris and required NOAA to establish a Genius Prize for Save Our Seas innovation and complete a number of studies and reports. The Save Our Seas 2.0 Act also established the Marine Debris Foundation which augments the efforts of the NOAA Marine Debris Program.
Key services:
- Serve as the U.S. Federal lead to address the issue of marine debris through prevention, removal, assessment, and coordination activities
- Execute $150M over five years (2022-2026) under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law for marine debris assessment, prevention, mitigation, and removal
- Support community-based removal efforts
- Conduct outreach, education, and behavior change activities to raise awareness about the impacts of marine debris
- Support research efforts to advance the scientific understanding of marine debris
- Conduct marine debris monitoring efforts
- Coordinate actions with local, state, and national partners
- Prepare for and respond to debris generated by extreme weather events
- Provide international leadership on the issue of marine debris
Emergency and Disaster Preparedness
All of the mandates that drive the work of OR&R have elements that relate to disasters and emergencies. We provide scientific and technical support to prevent, prepare for, and respond to marine pollution as well as protect and restore marine and coastal ecosystems, and the economies on which they rely, from the impacts of marine pollution.
In addition to our specific pollution mandates, we derive our emergency management mandates for support to OR&R and the National Ocean Service (NOS) primarily from four Presidential Directives and subsequent delegations — National Preparedness Goal, Presidential Policy Directive 8 (PPD-8) to include the National Disaster Recovery Framework; Domestic Incident Response, Presidential Policy Directive 44 (PPD-44); Federal Continuity Directive (PPD-40); and Management of Domestic Incidents, Homeland Security Presidential Directive 5 (HSPD-5) as well as related laws including 6 U.S.C 753(b), Federal Preparedness. These documents mandate specific preparedness measures and emergency response and recovery procedures to be undertaken by federal departments and agencies to ensure the nation is prepared for all-hazard response.
All of these mandates drive the work that we do to provide support to lead response and recovery agencies by integrating into response systems at command posts, coordination centers, and field offices for our own missions or in providing support for NOS capability.
Key services:
- Prepare NOS and partners to respond to and recover from pollution events and disasters
- Manage, test, and update NOS Continuity of Operations Planning
- Manage NOAA-wide disaster recovery support
- Provide training in technical and scientific elements that support incident response
- Conduct scenario-based exercises to enhance the preparedness posture
- Grant funding and regional support for coastal communities’ preparedness activities
- Compile and address lessons learned from incidents for continuous improvement
- Oversee operations and maintenance of the NOAA Disaster Response Center
