Since both crisis response and consequence management for the BP Oil Spill Disaster are being handled under the National Contingency Plan (NCP), rather than under the under the Stafford Act and the Presidential Disaster Declaration process, the Coast Guard, EPA, and NOAA are the lead actors.  DHS/FEMA do not have a lead role, but do have a supporting role.

Now that we are in the recovery phases, neither the NCP nor the lead agencies have any experience, nor much regulatory guidance, in how to do consequence management. As a result, they are inventing the recovery process as they go along. Some of us have been wondering why the Administration has chosen not to involve FEMA, which does in fact have experience and guidelines for dealing with affected citizens, businesses, and municipalities.

One more manifestation of the problem of inexperience is how to deal with the convergence of volunteers wanting to help.  See the article titled Extended hands left idle in gulf recovery; gung-ho but untrained, volunteers hit a wall in helping mitigation oil spill. [Wash. Post, June 29.] Once again,  experienced disaster hands know a convergence of volunteers is an expected activity in the aftermath of a disaster.  They are not easy to manage, but there are techniques and precedents for doing so. (Similarly, one can expect a convergence of media and of researchers.)

In short — why are we not using the federal response and recovery frameworks now in place for a Presidential Disaster Declaration (used for post-Katrina recovery) and instead put agencies with
no experience in charge of recovery?