Maritime Response Program

The Coast Guard is the Nation's maritime first responder. We search for and rescue persons in distress, alleviate human suffering, and mitigate marine casualties and other disastrous events. The Maritime Response program also mitigates pollution and damage to the marine environment through incident response operations. Our all-threats and all-hazards preparedness efforts ensure incident response and recovery resources are fully ready and capable of scalable mobilization in coordination with and support of local, state, tribal, federal, and private sector partners. Additionally, we also provide these same services in support of U.S. interests during international incidents.

Search and Rescue
The Coast Guard is the lead agency for maritime search and rescue in U.S. waters. We strive to alleviate human suffering and minimize loss of life and property by rendering aid to those in distress in the maritime environment and elsewhere when Coast Guard intervention can influence the outcome of life-threatening incidents. We maintain a high state of vigilant readiness and continuous distress monitoring; and when someone is in peril, we coordinate search and rescue efforts of afloat and airborne Coast Guard units with those of other federal, state and local responders, employing sophisticated drift modeling and search optimization tools to improve planning and execution. Using Captain of the Port authorities and responsibilities, the Coast Guard also coordinates response efforts on waterways after an incident or disaster. The Coast Guard is one of four federal partners in the Search and Rescue Satellite-Aided Tracking program and participates in the governance and operation of the International Cospas-Sarsat Programme. The Coast Guard is also partner with the world’s merchant fleet to rescue mariners in distress around the globe through the Automated Mutual-assistance Vessel Rescue system.
Maritime Environmental Response
The Coast Guard is the lead Federal agency for directing the removal and mitigation of oil and hazardous substances from spills and releases in the waters and shorelines of the coastal zone. The Coast Guard accomplishes marine environmental response and preparedness with strategically distributed marine environmental response program elements at the national, regional, and local level. This includes strategic program management and policy support at Coast Guard Headquarters and National Contingency Plan Special Teams, which include the Coast Guard National Strike Force and District Response Advisory Teams, Federal On-Scene Coordinators (FOSCs), FOSC Representatives, and Pollution Responders at Sectors, Marine Safety Units, and Marine Safety Detachments.
Crisis and Contingency Planning
The Incident Management and Preparedness Program establish processes and procedures to ensure effective employment of all Coast Guard resources in coordination with partner responders during significant incidents. Through active outreach to Coast Guard program managers, the Incident Management and Preparedness Program assesses, maintains and improves the knowledge, skills and abilities necessary to ensure consistency within the Service, agency interoperability and support to the National Preparedness and Planning Systems as established by Presidential Policy Directive 8. Program efforts ensure response readiness for all threats and all hazards and include exercises and real world events that cut across all Coast Guard programs.