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Office of Emergency Transportation: Mission and function
Eneqy Vol. 8. ?io. P-99.pp. 631433. 1983 Rintcd in Great Enurn.
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OFFICE OF EMERGENCY TRANSPORTATION: MISSION AND FUNCTION GEORGE W. BARRY Office of Emergency Transportation, U.S. Department of Transportation, Washington, DC 20590,U.S.A.
(ReceioedI5 September 1982) Abstract-The Department of Transportation’s Office of Emergency Transportation (OET) provides emergency resource management planning for civil transportation in crisis situations. Crises, including the worst-case emergency, war, require management of the department’s operating elements: the U.S. Coast Guard, the Federal Aviation Administration, the Urban Mass Transportation Administration, and the Maritime Administration, and coordination with outside transportation agencies. The latter include the Interstate Commerce Commission, the Civil Aeronautics Board, the Corps of Engineers, the Civil Works Rivers and Harbors Division, and the Tennessee Valley Authority. During the 1979energy crisis, OET served as a communications center to facilitate the national movement of fuel for all transportation modes.
I have been asked to direct my remarks today to the federal response to energy crises that affect the nation’s civil transportation system, both domestic and international, including related facilities. In particular, I want to discuss the role of the Office of Emergency Transportation (OET) in the Department of Transportation’s Research and Special Programs Administration. I will explain its organization, its general mission, and its functions. It is the office within the department most concerned with the secretary’s statutory and administrative responsibilities for all civil transportation emergency-preparedness matters. The office itself is quite small and has only two major subdivisions: (1) a unit for continuity of government planning or the continuity of the department-and, in particular, the office of the secretary-in periods of crisis; (2) a unit for emergency resource-management planning to provide for the effective and timely response of the civil transportation resources to crisis situations. It is the latter subdivision of OET activities that we are interested in today. As good transportation planners, the thrust of our resource management effort is to meet the needs of a worst-case situation. However, in so doing, we must provide that such planning, policy, and procedural arrangements can be applied incrementally to accommodate any crisis situation which would require federal response. To this end, the office has developed and published a family of emergency action documents. They cover worst-case situations such as nuclear and conventional war; what the British call an industrial disturbance, or a strike, within the transportation industry or affecting the industry (e.g., the recent coal strike); and natural disasters, including the effects of cold weather and Mt. St. Helens. Of course, an energy crisis, particularly a petroleum supply interruption, as we experienced in the seventies, falls well within the parameters of crisis conditions. For the secretary of transportation to be able to adequately discharge worst-case, or war, responsibilities, it was necessary- to develop an emergency organization applicable to all transportation modes. The department contains individual operating elements, e.g., the U.S. Coast Guard, the Federal Aviation Administration, the Federal Highway Administration, the Urban Mass Transportation Administration, and now the Maritime Administration. The,y are all singly-modal oriented, although they interface to some degree. The secretary’s charge extends further, to those members of the federal transportation community who are external to the department, such as the Interstate Commerce Commission, Civil Aeronautics Board, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Civil Works Rivers and Harbors Division, and the Tennessee Valley Authority. These agencies all do their civil transportation emergency-preparedness planning under the coordinating authority of the Department of Transportation. The Department of Transportation Emergency Organization, or DOTEO, has both a headquarters and field structure on paper. The paper organization is manned with civilian employees, whom we identify as MOBDES, and members of the transportation industry who have been recruited into our National Defense Executive Reserve (NDER) unit. This latter group are persons who have volunteered their services for wartime. We have more than 400 631
631
G. W. BRRV
members of the NDER at this time. They are primarily assigned to our regional structure, which provides for a DOTE0 in each of the 10 standard federal regions. Training at the regional level is provided annually in each region and in Alaska, which is treated separately. To manage the MOBDES and NDER programs in each region, there has been designated a DOT Regional Emergency Transportation Coordinator, or RETCO. The RETCOs are all dual-hatted in that they are very senior regional federal employees performing the RETCO function in addition to their normally assigned duties. The RETCOs represent the Secretary of Transportation in all regional transportation emergency-preparedness activities and coordinate the regional federal transportation community’s response to ail crises. Their contacts, including their NDER membership, are excellent sources of information, particularly during crises such as those created by an energy shortfall. Needless to say, we always protect the source, although we use these sources rather extensively in developing informational data during a crisis. With what is intended to be a brief introductory background statement, let me now be specific as to the role of the Ofice of Emergency Transportation with respect to responding to petroleum shortfalls in the transportation industry. Perhaps the best approach is to consider OET’s participation in past crises, bearing in mind that the secretary’s emergency authority in peacetime severely limits what he can do. The department’s response to the oil cutoff in the early seventies was to activate the secretary’s situation center and initially establish a 24 hr monitorship of the impact of the shortage on the transportation industry. We collected data on all modes from all sources, fed them to other federal agencies, and at national and regional levels, assisted in locating petroleum fuel supplies for those carriers desperately in clear need of such supplies. At the national level, daily reports on a nationwide basis were prepared and distributed to concerned members of the industry and federal agencies. This general approach was followed in subsequent crises until the middle distillate shortages of the summer of 1979, when circumstances beyond the department’s control resulted in a change in our method of operation. The stimulus was the threat of a teamsters’ strike in the spring of 1979. The secretary’s situation center was activated and manned on a 24hr basis to monitor the impact of the threatened strike. Daily reports were prepared and submitted to the secretary. Although, after three weeks, the strike threat mitigated, the independent owner/operator truckers became militant and the center was kept in operation. Further, there appeared signs of a national distillate shortage, particularly in the central states. To insure safe movement of motor freight, secure north/south and east/west highway routes were established with the assistance of the Department of Justice. These routes, over which truckers could move in relative safety, included information as to fuel stops at which one could reasonably expect to find fuel. You will recall that in a speech in Iowa that spring, President Carter had promised the farmers that their diesel fuel needs would be met. Now, whether or not that promise was a direct cause, it certainly contributed to a rapidly growing shortage of fuel for civil transportation carriers. The center’s daily data-gathering computation quickly showed a serious lack of fuels to operate essential urban and intercity mass passenger transportation, which had experienced dramatic increases in ridership. Similarly, motor freight carriers had severe problems in adjusting to the existing fuel allocation system. The center, which was then being operated with federal highway administration personnel, was augmented with staff from the Departments of Agriculture, Energy, and Justice, and the Interstate Commerce Commission. Daily situation reports, seven days a week, covering the status of available fuel-by carrier mode and region-were prepared and distributed to all concerned. The White House was a primary recipient of this information. The problems of urban mass transit were brought to the attention of the Department of Energy (DOE), which provided relief through the issuance of a special allocation rule. In addition, when alerted to the problem, DOE provided for the expeditious movement of fresh fruits and vegetables from farm to market by issuing another special fuel allocation rule. However, the latter action had several serious omissions. No additional allocation was provided to get the trucks from their home base to the point-ofloading or to their home base from the market point-of-discharge. In July, the fuel situation worsened for all motor carriers and independent owner-operators who serviced the central state areas, namely, Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, North and South
Office of emergency transportation: mission and function
633
Dakota, and particularly, Montana. The center gathered information daily on the fuel availability at every major truck stop in lMontana and Nebraska. This information was passed on to individual truckers and major motor carriers who had access to three watts lines ser;ring the center. It is amazing how popular those watts-line numbers became. The situation was indeed serious. At one point, the center was unable to locate any diesel fuel in Montana available for retail sale on either one of the main north/south and east/west interstate highways. I have used the motor carriers as an example only. Rail and airlines also had problems which the center brought to the attention or DOE. The center continued its activity on a gradually reduced basis until just before Christmas of 1979, when it was deactivated. I must point out that the basis for much of the data gathered by the center were the daily RETCO situation reports of petroleum fuel availability. We believe that the center met a very useful need and was quite successful in insuring that action was taken where required. In regard to future oil shortfalls, let me note that while the market is generally the most efficient means of allocation, it may be necessary to employ some mandatory allocations in military or other extreme emergencies. It is essential to the national security that DOE allocation procedures under the Defense Production Act (or any other relevant authority) be compatible with the allocation of transportation services by the Department of Transportation. Such compatibility does not exist today. The Office of Emergency Transportation does not know what claims on energy it will make to insure that civil transportation will be able to satisfy national security requirements. Moreover, under certain conditions the Department of Transportation has the responsibility to support some NATO transportation (aircraft and shipping) as well as our own civil system. Finally, we know that if we have a severe oil shortage, two airports in the country are probably going to run out of aviation fuel within a few hours. One is the Denver Airport and the other is Kennedy. Kennedy may have fuel, but it is probably going to be on the bonded side. If you have ever tried to get anything that is under bond moved into commercial trade, you know it takes quite a while. In 1973, it took us a week to get fuel transferred. We need to know that we have the capability to obtain essential fuel. We may not be at war at the time we have such critical need; we may not even be in a declared national defense emergency.
03m44z83 13.00+ .m PergamaaPress Ltci
OFFICE OF EMERGENCY TRANSPORTATION: MISSION AND FUNCTION GEORGE W. BARRY Office of Emergency Transportation, U.S. Department of Transportation, Washington, DC 20590,U.S.A.
(ReceioedI5 September 1982) Abstract-The Department of Transportation’s Office of Emergency Transportation (OET) provides emergency resource management planning for civil transportation in crisis situations. Crises, including the worst-case emergency, war, require management of the department’s operating elements: the U.S. Coast Guard, the Federal Aviation Administration, the Urban Mass Transportation Administration, and the Maritime Administration, and coordination with outside transportation agencies. The latter include the Interstate Commerce Commission, the Civil Aeronautics Board, the Corps of Engineers, the Civil Works Rivers and Harbors Division, and the Tennessee Valley Authority. During the 1979energy crisis, OET served as a communications center to facilitate the national movement of fuel for all transportation modes.
I have been asked to direct my remarks today to the federal response to energy crises that affect the nation’s civil transportation system, both domestic and international, including related facilities. In particular, I want to discuss the role of the Office of Emergency Transportation (OET) in the Department of Transportation’s Research and Special Programs Administration. I will explain its organization, its general mission, and its functions. It is the office within the department most concerned with the secretary’s statutory and administrative responsibilities for all civil transportation emergency-preparedness matters. The office itself is quite small and has only two major subdivisions: (1) a unit for continuity of government planning or the continuity of the department-and, in particular, the office of the secretary-in periods of crisis; (2) a unit for emergency resource-management planning to provide for the effective and timely response of the civil transportation resources to crisis situations. It is the latter subdivision of OET activities that we are interested in today. As good transportation planners, the thrust of our resource management effort is to meet the needs of a worst-case situation. However, in so doing, we must provide that such planning, policy, and procedural arrangements can be applied incrementally to accommodate any crisis situation which would require federal response. To this end, the office has developed and published a family of emergency action documents. They cover worst-case situations such as nuclear and conventional war; what the British call an industrial disturbance, or a strike, within the transportation industry or affecting the industry (e.g., the recent coal strike); and natural disasters, including the effects of cold weather and Mt. St. Helens. Of course, an energy crisis, particularly a petroleum supply interruption, as we experienced in the seventies, falls well within the parameters of crisis conditions. For the secretary of transportation to be able to adequately discharge worst-case, or war, responsibilities, it was necessary- to develop an emergency organization applicable to all transportation modes. The department contains individual operating elements, e.g., the U.S. Coast Guard, the Federal Aviation Administration, the Federal Highway Administration, the Urban Mass Transportation Administration, and now the Maritime Administration. The,y are all singly-modal oriented, although they interface to some degree. The secretary’s charge extends further, to those members of the federal transportation community who are external to the department, such as the Interstate Commerce Commission, Civil Aeronautics Board, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Civil Works Rivers and Harbors Division, and the Tennessee Valley Authority. These agencies all do their civil transportation emergency-preparedness planning under the coordinating authority of the Department of Transportation. The Department of Transportation Emergency Organization, or DOTEO, has both a headquarters and field structure on paper. The paper organization is manned with civilian employees, whom we identify as MOBDES, and members of the transportation industry who have been recruited into our National Defense Executive Reserve (NDER) unit. This latter group are persons who have volunteered their services for wartime. We have more than 400 631
631
G. W. BRRV
members of the NDER at this time. They are primarily assigned to our regional structure, which provides for a DOTE0 in each of the 10 standard federal regions. Training at the regional level is provided annually in each region and in Alaska, which is treated separately. To manage the MOBDES and NDER programs in each region, there has been designated a DOT Regional Emergency Transportation Coordinator, or RETCO. The RETCOs are all dual-hatted in that they are very senior regional federal employees performing the RETCO function in addition to their normally assigned duties. The RETCOs represent the Secretary of Transportation in all regional transportation emergency-preparedness activities and coordinate the regional federal transportation community’s response to ail crises. Their contacts, including their NDER membership, are excellent sources of information, particularly during crises such as those created by an energy shortfall. Needless to say, we always protect the source, although we use these sources rather extensively in developing informational data during a crisis. With what is intended to be a brief introductory background statement, let me now be specific as to the role of the Ofice of Emergency Transportation with respect to responding to petroleum shortfalls in the transportation industry. Perhaps the best approach is to consider OET’s participation in past crises, bearing in mind that the secretary’s emergency authority in peacetime severely limits what he can do. The department’s response to the oil cutoff in the early seventies was to activate the secretary’s situation center and initially establish a 24 hr monitorship of the impact of the shortage on the transportation industry. We collected data on all modes from all sources, fed them to other federal agencies, and at national and regional levels, assisted in locating petroleum fuel supplies for those carriers desperately in clear need of such supplies. At the national level, daily reports on a nationwide basis were prepared and distributed to concerned members of the industry and federal agencies. This general approach was followed in subsequent crises until the middle distillate shortages of the summer of 1979, when circumstances beyond the department’s control resulted in a change in our method of operation. The stimulus was the threat of a teamsters’ strike in the spring of 1979. The secretary’s situation center was activated and manned on a 24hr basis to monitor the impact of the threatened strike. Daily reports were prepared and submitted to the secretary. Although, after three weeks, the strike threat mitigated, the independent owner/operator truckers became militant and the center was kept in operation. Further, there appeared signs of a national distillate shortage, particularly in the central states. To insure safe movement of motor freight, secure north/south and east/west highway routes were established with the assistance of the Department of Justice. These routes, over which truckers could move in relative safety, included information as to fuel stops at which one could reasonably expect to find fuel. You will recall that in a speech in Iowa that spring, President Carter had promised the farmers that their diesel fuel needs would be met. Now, whether or not that promise was a direct cause, it certainly contributed to a rapidly growing shortage of fuel for civil transportation carriers. The center’s daily data-gathering computation quickly showed a serious lack of fuels to operate essential urban and intercity mass passenger transportation, which had experienced dramatic increases in ridership. Similarly, motor freight carriers had severe problems in adjusting to the existing fuel allocation system. The center, which was then being operated with federal highway administration personnel, was augmented with staff from the Departments of Agriculture, Energy, and Justice, and the Interstate Commerce Commission. Daily situation reports, seven days a week, covering the status of available fuel-by carrier mode and region-were prepared and distributed to all concerned. The White House was a primary recipient of this information. The problems of urban mass transit were brought to the attention of the Department of Energy (DOE), which provided relief through the issuance of a special allocation rule. In addition, when alerted to the problem, DOE provided for the expeditious movement of fresh fruits and vegetables from farm to market by issuing another special fuel allocation rule. However, the latter action had several serious omissions. No additional allocation was provided to get the trucks from their home base to the point-ofloading or to their home base from the market point-of-discharge. In July, the fuel situation worsened for all motor carriers and independent owner-operators who serviced the central state areas, namely, Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, North and South
Office of emergency transportation: mission and function
633
Dakota, and particularly, Montana. The center gathered information daily on the fuel availability at every major truck stop in lMontana and Nebraska. This information was passed on to individual truckers and major motor carriers who had access to three watts lines ser;ring the center. It is amazing how popular those watts-line numbers became. The situation was indeed serious. At one point, the center was unable to locate any diesel fuel in Montana available for retail sale on either one of the main north/south and east/west interstate highways. I have used the motor carriers as an example only. Rail and airlines also had problems which the center brought to the attention or DOE. The center continued its activity on a gradually reduced basis until just before Christmas of 1979, when it was deactivated. I must point out that the basis for much of the data gathered by the center were the daily RETCO situation reports of petroleum fuel availability. We believe that the center met a very useful need and was quite successful in insuring that action was taken where required. In regard to future oil shortfalls, let me note that while the market is generally the most efficient means of allocation, it may be necessary to employ some mandatory allocations in military or other extreme emergencies. It is essential to the national security that DOE allocation procedures under the Defense Production Act (or any other relevant authority) be compatible with the allocation of transportation services by the Department of Transportation. Such compatibility does not exist today. The Office of Emergency Transportation does not know what claims on energy it will make to insure that civil transportation will be able to satisfy national security requirements. Moreover, under certain conditions the Department of Transportation has the responsibility to support some NATO transportation (aircraft and shipping) as well as our own civil system. Finally, we know that if we have a severe oil shortage, two airports in the country are probably going to run out of aviation fuel within a few hours. One is the Denver Airport and the other is Kennedy. Kennedy may have fuel, but it is probably going to be on the bonded side. If you have ever tried to get anything that is under bond moved into commercial trade, you know it takes quite a while. In 1973, it took us a week to get fuel transferred. We need to know that we have the capability to obtain essential fuel. We may not be at war at the time we have such critical need; we may not even be in a declared national defense emergency.