The Director of Incident Management and Preparedness published an update to the Coast Guard Marine Environmental Response and Preparedness Manual, Oct. 1, 2018.

Major changes to the manual include:

• Area Contingency Plan policy verification tiers of Geographic Response Strategies, review and verification requirements.
• Environmental consultation requirements for key statutes.
• Facility Response Plan approvals.
• Coast Guard responsibilities related to Alternative Planning Criteria.
• Procedures for International Assistance Requests from Foreign Governments not Subject to Regional Agreements.
• Organizational changes to Coast Guard incident management and pollution response teams.

Questions or comments regarding the update should be directed to MERManualcomments@uscg.mil. The Coast Guard will consider input for the next update until Jan. 18, 2019.

This blog is not a replacement or substitute for the formal posting of regulations and updates or existing processes for receiving formal feedback of the same. Links provided on this blog will direct the reader to official source documents, such as the Federal Register, Homeport and the Code of Federal Regulations. These documents remain the official source for regulatory information published by the Coast Guard.