Bud's Offshore Energy (BOE)

Some post-Macondo commentary has characterized MMS employees as regulatory Neanderthals who couldn’t see beyond their checklists, had no understanding of operating systems and the associated process-safety risks, and were dreadfully behind their industry and regulatory peers. The reality is quite different, as those who worked with or for the MMS know. Someone who did both, Doug Morris, an engineer and attorney with extensive industry and regulatory experience, shared this excerpt from an April 1988 Federal Register notice. The Notice publishes the outcome of a 5-year regulatory review that updated and consolidated all MMS operating requirements for offshore oil and gas operations. One of objectives was to establish performance standards for all types of operations to encourage innovation and discourage a “compliance mentality.” Keep in mind that this Notice was published before Piper Alpha, the Cullen report, and the worldwide wave of regulatory reform that followed.

The following summarizes the major changes from current rules:

(1) Performance Standards. Performance standards were added which describe the safety, environmental, property, and resource protection goals intended to be achieved by specified design and engineering requirements. These additions are intended to identify the purpose of the detailed requirements and thus provide a basis for approving an alternative method for achievement of the stated purpose. New, different, better, and more efficient techniques and practices are intended to be available to lessees on the basis of these performance standards.

(a) Performance Requirements. A “Performance requirements” section was added. This section clarifies that the specific detailed requirements of the rule do not preclude the approval for use of alternate or new techniques, procedures, equipment, or activities when the lessee satisfies MMS that the proposed alternate approach provides equal or greater protection than that provided by the requirements specified in the rule. The establishment of performance standards in addition to specific detailed requirements is intended to remove obstacles to innovation and ensure that MMS’s regulations are not unnecessarily prescriptive.