Regulatory
Reform
In response to
the Deepwater Horizon explosion and resulting oil spill
in the Gulf of Mexico, the Obama Administration launched the
most aggressive and comprehensive reforms to offshore oil and
gas regulation and oversight in U.S. history. The reforms, which
strengthen requirements for everything from well design and
workplace safety to corporate accountability, are helping ensure
that the United States can safely and responsibly expand
development of its energy resources.
In selecting
Michael R. Bromwich to lead the newly-established Bureau of
Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE) in
June 2010, President Barack Obama and Department of the Interior
(DOI) Secretary Ken Salazar issued a mandate: to reform the
government’s regulation of offshore energy development and the
agency responsible for it.
Under the
leadership of Secretary Salazar and Director Bromwich, the
Department of the Interior (DOI) and BOEMRE are making the
fundamental changes necessary to restore the American people’s
confidence in the safety and environmental protection of oil and
gas drilling and production on the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf,
ensuring that responsible oil and gas development continues.
Improving the Safety of Offshore Drilling
We have
launched aggressive, comprehensive reforms to offshore oil and
gas regulation and oversight:
Enhanced
Drilling Safety
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Operators must demonstrate that they are prepared to
deal with the potential for a blowout and worst-case
discharge per
NTL-06.
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Permit
applications for drilling projects must meet new
standards for well-design, casing, and cementing, and be
independently certified by a professional engineer per
the new
Drilling Safety Rule. We are strengthening
drilling standards in the exploration and development
stages, for equipment, safety practices, environmental
safeguards, and oversight.
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New guidance, through
NTL-10, requires a corporate compliance statement and review of
subsea blowout containment resources for deepwater
drilling, a key lesson of the Deepwater Horizon oil
spill.
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BOEMRE recently
announced that the bureau will begin to use multiple-person inspection teams for offshore oil and gas inspections. This internal process improvement will improve oversight and help ensure that offshore operations proceed safely and responsibly. The new process will allow teams to inspect multiple operations simultaneously and thoroughly, and enhance the quality of inspections on larger facilities.
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Enhanced
Workplace Safety
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We have imposed, for the first time,
requirements that offshore operators maintain
comprehensive safety and environmental programs. This
includes performance-based standards for offshore
drilling and production operations, including equipment,
safety practices, environmental safeguards, and
management oversight of operations and contractors.
Companies will now have to develop and maintain a Safety
and Environmental Management System (SEMS) per the new
Workplace Safety Rule.
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Ongoing
Improvements to the Offshore Regulator
The
reorganization and internal reforms that BOEMRE is implementing
are designed to remove the complex and sometimes conflicting
missions of the former MMS by clarifying
and separating these missions across three agencies and
providing each of the new agencies with clear areas of focus and
new resources necessary to fulfill those missions:
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In the place of the former Mineral Management Service (MMS), we are creating three strong, independent agencies with clearly defined roles and missions through a
comprehensive re-organization.
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In his first week, Director Bromwich established an
Investigations and Review Unit to root out
problems within the regulatory agency and target
companies that aim to game the system.
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The bureau has implemented a new
recusal policy for BOEMRE employees to deal with
real and perceived conflicts of interest.
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Secretary Salazar and Director Bromwich launched a full
review of the use of
National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA),
categorical exclusions, during which they are not being
used to approve proposed deepwater drilling projects.
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As part of the reorganization, BOEMRE
has created multiple
Implementation Teams, tasked with analyzing
various aspects of bureau’s regulatory structure and
helping to implement the reform agenda.
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Secretary Salazar and Director Bromwich established the
Ocean Energy Safety Advisory Committee, a
permanent advisory body of the nation’s leading
scientific, engineering, and technical experts who
provide critical guidance on improving offshore drilling
safety, well containment, and spill response.
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BOEMRE believes that public
input is critical as we safely explore and
develop offshore resources.
Public
comment is solicited in our environmental
review and regulatory programs for both oil and gas, and
renewable energy proposals. This is critical to
science-based decision making that is transparent and
accessible.
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Director Bromwich launched a
recruitment campaign to expand the bureau’s
field of inspectors and engineers – receiving more than
500 applications in two weeks.
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Director Bromwich also embarked on an
April 2011 recruitment campaign to expand our
field of environmental scientists, with visits to more
than 10 top universities across the country.
BOEMRE will be hiring environmental scientists in the
coming months to do work in fields ranging from
environmental studies to
National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)
review to environmental compliance – all of which are
critical to the balanced development of offshore
resources. The bureau received more than 2,000
applications during the six week tour.
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