Top U.S. official says adjustments made on offshore drilling rule, following “alarmist” industry response
Wednesday March 2, 2016
WASHINGTON A new federal rule designed to reduce the chance of another offshore drilling accident off the Gulf Coast like Deepwater Horizon has undergone some adjustments†in response to intense industry criticism, a top U.S. energy official told a House subcommittee Wednesday.
Brian Salerno, director of the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, said changes to the new offshore drilling standards had merely codified what was standard practice at his agency that inspectors did not rigidly follow the letter of the law but worked with operators on offshore drilling rigs to find safe and reasonable solutions.
There's been a lot of alarmist language associated with this,†Salerno said, following a hearing before the House Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources. To believe it you would have to ignore the way this agency has historically operated.â€
Salerno declined to go into specific changes, citing the fact what is known as the well control rule is still under review at the Office of Management and Budget.
But operators have fixated on a provision within the rule that would fix what pressure wells must operate at during drilling, in the interest of preventing the sort of high-pressure gas blow back that caused BP to lose control of the Deepwater Horizon well in 2010.
Critics, citing a recent report from the research firm Wood Mackenzie, have piled on the rule as overly prescriptive and likely to cause a severe pull back in oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.
On Wednesday some congressmen questioned whether the purpose of the rule was not to hurt the Gulf's oil and gas sector a nod to President Obama's plans to reduce the burning of fossil fuels to hopefully slow climate change.
I am very concerned about the expertise within your agency to write this rule,†said U.S. Rep. Garret Graves, R-Louisiana. Deepwater Horizon was caused by gross negligence. It wasn't because the rules were flawed.â€
Salerno questioned that analysis, stating the rule had been written in response to hundreds of recommendations from various government committees and...