U.S. Issues New Rules on Offshore Drilling
By John M. Broder, The New York Times
The Interior Department tightened its rules on offshore oil and gas operations today but left in place the moratorium on deepwater drilling that has left oil executives frustrated and Gulf Coast officials fuming.
The new rules, governing well casing and cementing, blowout preventers, safety certification, emergency response and worker training, provide offshore drillers with clarity on the terms under which drilling will resume when the current freeze ends.
The main conditions had already been telegraphed by the department in a safety report issued in May and in two notices to offshore operators handed down in June in response to the blowout of a BP well in the Gulf of Mexico on April 20.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar presented the new rules in a speech Thursday morning, calling them a fundamental change that will guide all future leasing and development decisions in the gulf, the Arctic and elsewhere.
“We are raising the bar for safety, oversight and environmental protection at every stage of the drilling process,” he said in the speech, at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars here.
The rules take effect immediately under emergency rule-making powers.
In an interview, Mr. Salazar said he expected oil companies to complain, but to quickly comply.
“We’ll hear from industry that the regulations are too onerous, but the fact is, it’s a new day,” he said. “There is the pre-April 20 framework of regulation and the post-April 20 framework, and the oil and gas industry better get used to it, because that’s the way it’s going to be.”
The secretary pointedly refused to say when or under what conditions he would lift the drilling suspension, which has caused economic hardship along the Gulf Coast and political headaches for the Obama administration.
“We will lift it at our own time and when we’re ready, and not based on political pressure from anyone,” Mr. Salazar said.
The moratorium on deepwater drilling, imposed in late April, is scheduled to end on Nov. 30, but officials have signaled that it will probably be eased before then.
Senator Mary Landrieu, Democrat of Louisiana and a strong ally of the oil industry, is blocking the confirmation of Jack Lew as the new White House budget director until the moratorium is lifted or substantially eased.
Michael R. Bromwich, director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, the Interior Department office that now polices offshore drilling, was to deliver a report to Mr. Salazar shortly providing a blueprint for safely resuming drilling.
Mr. Salazar said he would review the report before deciding when that might happen.
On Thursday, the White House spokesman, Robert Gibbs, said the new regulations and the completion of the Bromwich report “likely” meant that the drilling pause would end before Nov. 30.
Mr. Bromwich indicated this week that even after the moratorium was lifted, it could be weeks or even months before his agency granted permits allowing the 33 idled deepwater rigs in the gulf to start up again. Permits would be issued only after companies provided new spill response plans that detailed certification of the performance of critical equipment, like blowout preventers.
Oil industry executives expressed resignation about the new rules, saying they could be met, at some cost.
Marvin E. Odum, the president of Shell Oil, said in an interview that his company had weathered the moratorium so far by renegotiating contracts on its seven idle deepwater rigs in the gulf, allowing it to keep most of its skilled workers on the payroll.
“The piece I’m more concerned about is that when the moratorium does get lifted, you won’t be able to get back to work until the permit system starts to flow again,” Mr. Odum said. “Will it be weeks, months? That’s the big question.”
Environmental advocates generally praised the new rules.
Jacqueline Savitz, a senior scientist at Oceana, a nonprofit environmental group, said that the new regulations alone would not prevent another spill.
“The BP disaster occurred because standards were not met and monitoring and inspections were too lax,” she said. “While stricter standards might help, adding them ignores the fact that there is simply no guarantee they will be followed.”
She urged Mr. Salazar to continue the freeze on deepwater drilling and extend it to shallow-water wells.
Photo Source: Marine Lawyers, Treehugger.
