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Environmental
Sciences Program
The Environmental Sciences Branch (ESB) provides policy guidance and program direction
and oversight for the MMS Environmental Studies Program and
the MMS Oil Spill Modeling Program.
The ESB provides national level coordination with research managers within the
Department of the Interior, other Federal agencies and coordinating committees, and
non-federal research organizations. The ESB staff provide:
 | MMS’ Chief Scientist Returns
Recently, Dr. James (Jim) Kendall, MMS Chief Scientist, returned from a
five month detail as a visiting scientist to the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration’s Office of Ocean Exploration and Research (NOAA-OER). He described the detail as, “…a once in a lifetime assignment!”
While on this detail, one of Dr. Kendall’s assignments was to lead the
effort of drafting the Strategic Plan for the United States (U.S.) Extended
Continental Shelf (ECS) Project. Working collaboratively with other
scientists from diverse disciplines, the ECS Task Force is to prepare the
documentation necessary to establish the outer limit for the U.S. ECS
estimated to exceed 1 million square kilometers and potentially including
energy and mineral resources valued in excess of $1 trillion. The draft ECS
Strategic Plan prepared by Dr. Kendall lays out a path for accomplishing
this potentially decade long effort.
This collaborative process continued as Kendall partnered with his MMS
and NOAA-OER colleagues to co-authoring Ocean Exploration: Discovery and
Offshore Stewardship, featured in the December issue of the journal
Oceanography. This paper highlights the role of exploration in MMS’
stewardship responsibilities and how it is contributing to the development
of a more ecosystem-based management approach to our nation’s ocean and
coastal resources. Dr. Kendall and his co-authors also provide clear
examples of how forging collaborative partnerships between diverse
scientific disciplines can ultimately yield unexpected discoveries and
significant cost savings.
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Oversight of more than 25 years of environmental and socioeconomic research in the
Alaska, Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico, and Pacific OCS areas. Over this period of time,
innovative research elucidating complex environmental processes and discovery of new
marine species have been documented in thousands of peer reviewed publications and
government reports which can be found in
ESPIS, the
Environmental Studies Program Information System.
Estimation of the oil-spill risks associated with offshore production, addressing the
likelihood of spill occurrence, the transport and fate of spilled oil. The MMS Oil-Spill
Risk Analysis (OSRA) model combines the probability of spill occurrence with a statistical
description of hypothetical oil-spill movement on the ocean surface.
| Technical information and analyses for NEPA and
OCSLA reports, and proposed legislation
and regulations that may affect OCS activities.
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| Program policy and budget information and analyses.
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| For information pertaining to operational safety, pollution prevention, oil spill
response, and cleanup capabilities, visit our
Technology
Assessment and Research (TA&R) Program. the TA&R Program is a research element
encompassed by the MMS Regulatory Program. It was established in the 1970's to ensure that
industry operations on the Outer Continental Shelf incorporated the use of the Best
Available and Safest Technologies (BAST) subsequently required through the 1978
OSCLA amendments. |
For more information, contact James Kendall.
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