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zone, then the vessel owner/operator is not required to verify or document the adequacy of the OSRO. If a response resource that is not a classified OSRO is utilized, then the vessel owner/operator has the burden of showing the adequacy of the identified responder. The salvage and marine firefighting regulation, on the other hand, includes a list of 15 selection criteria that must be utilized by the vessel owner/operator in selecting a resource provider. These include, but are not limited to, whether the resource provider is currently working in the response service needed; whether it has a documented history of participation in successful salvage and/or marine firefighting; whether it owns or has contracts for the needed equipment; and whether it has personnel with documented training certification and degree experience. The owner or operator must certify that all 15 factors were considered which the resource provider was chosen. This change in methodology is clearly an effort to shift the evaluation burden from the Coast Guard to the vessel owner/operator. Due to their everincreasing mission requirements, without a proportional increase in budget or manpower, the Coast Guard must make this tactical change from their historical preference for a "hands on" confirmation process. Further, at the end of the day, in accordance with the intent, if not the specific wording, of the salvage and marine firefighting regulations, the responsibility for a casualty response begins and ends with the owner/operator. Rather than the across the board approach of the original proposal, the new rulemaking adopts a varying incident response timeframe, depending on the particular salvage or marine firefighting service involved. The majority of the services must be capable of responding within 18 or 24 hours, but some response times vary from one (1) hour for remote salvage assessment and consultation to 84 hours for subsurface product removal operations in offshore areas. This nuanced approach is a clear improvement over the original proposal. The vessel owner/operator is required to prepare a marine firefighting pre-fire plan in accordance with standards established by either the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) or the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS Convention). A copy of the pre-fire plan must be provided to the marine firefighting resource provider identified in the VRP. The marine firefighting resource provider must certify in writing that it finds the February 2009 pre-fire plan acceptable and agrees to implement it to mitigate a potential or actual fire. If the resource provider subcontracts to other organizations, each subcontractor must also receive a copy of the pre-fire plan. One potential glitch in this otherwise excellent provision is that the pre-fire plan provided for under the SOLAS Convention is only required to be in the working language of the vessel's crew. It seems to make sense that the regulation be expanded to require that if a SOLAS Convention pre-fire plan is utilized to meet this requirement, it must be written in (or translated into) the English language. Time is critical in the response effort. Any delay, including any time necessary to translate a plan from a foreign language into English when trading in an area where English is the primary language, could mean the difference between success and failure. The rulemaking generated much discussion regarding the use of public resources, primarily for the marine firefighting requirement. Numerous interested parties pointed out that firefighting is generally a government (or public) function and that vessel owners/operators should be able to rely on that public service to fulfill at least a portion of the marine firefighting requirement. The Coast Guard correctly pointed out that OPA 90 specifically requires the VRP to identify "private personnel and equip- ment" adequate to respond to a worse case discharge. It also pointed out that many local fire departments are prohibited from providing services outside their jurisdiction. The Coast Guard did, though, include a provision in the regulation allowing the vessel owner/operator to list a public marine firefighting resource provided that such firefighting resource concurs and has agreed to respond within the required geographical limits. Ultimately, the issue of the inclusion of public and/or private marine firefighters as part of the owner/operator VRP will need to be decided upon by the owner/operator based upon their evaluation of needs and trading patterns and the mix of available assets. There is a related, but largely unaddressed, issue regarding public firefighting organizations. The oil spill response paradigm on which the VRP is premised is that the US Coast Guard will be in ultimate control of the process. This is largely true. A major exception occurs with regard to firefighting in a port or inland waterway. In a local firefighting situation, the local public fire department is in charge. Operational measures must be coordinated between the US Coast Guard and the local authorities when a shipboard fire occurs in a port. For the most part, this coordination has been addressed well in advance. Coast Guard officials (particularly the individual Captains of the Port - COTPs) would do well to liaison regularly with local fire department officials within their respective zones. The Coast Guard recognizes that there exists the possibility that all of the salvage and marine firefighting resources deemed necessary to fully respond to worse case scenarios may not yet be available on a nationwide basis. For that reason, and in order to provide the salvage and marine firefighting industries time to build their assets, the regulation includes a provision whereby the vessel owner/operator may request a temporary waiver of one or more specified response time requirements. The waiver request must be specific and must include the reason why the time requirement cannot be met and how the owner/operator intends to correct the shortfall, the time it will take to do so, and what arrangements have been made to provide the required response resources and their estimated response times. The regulation also provides the maximum waiver time period for the various response services. While the language utilized in the final rule is not a model of clarity, careful reading of the regulation along with review of the regulatory preamble indicate that the vessel owner or operator must enter into a funding agreement with the primary resource provider(s). The funding agreement is defined as a written agreement that confirms that the www.marinelink.com 23