Bud's Offshore Energy (BOE)

A New York Times article suggests that the consolidation of BOEM and BSEE into the Marine Minerals Administration will weaken environmental oversight. It will not. On the contrary, regulation is likely to be strengthened as resources shift from inter-bureau coordination and redundancy management to the primary safety and environmental protection missions.

I recommended a BOEM-BSEE merger in the comments I submitted to DOI last July. No doubt others have made similar recommendations. Nonetheless, I was surprised when the consolidation was announced and quickly expressed my support for the decision.

Given the challenges associated with Federal reorganizations, agency heads often opt for the status quo. I’m pleased that the current DOI leadership team, with whom I disagree on some issues, chose to merge the bureaus.

Quotes from the NYT article followed by my comments:

NYT: The Trump administration is creating a new office that critics say could weaken the environmental oversight of oil drilling and seabed mining in territorial waters.

Comment: The functional overlap and associated uncertainty that permeates the offshore regulatory regime is a weakness, not a strength. Virtually every element of the regulatory program requires coordination between the two bureaus. This includes plan and permit approvals, decommissioning and financial assurance, spill response plans, lease stipulations, assignments, pipeline regulation, environmental reviews, enforcement actions, and geologic data collection and review. Note the list of MOUs that are intended to coordinate BOEM and BSEE redundancy. The documents often do more to confuse than clarify. For example, see the MOU entitled “Environmental and NEPA.”

Multi-bureau organizational complexity is not in the best interest of safety and environmental protection. Overlapping responsibilities, coordination challenges, and “turf” issues distract the technical staff from their important risk management duties, the work they are good at and enjoy doing. BSEE and BOEM should be overseeing the offshore industry, not each other.

NYT: The new agency, the Marine Minerals Administration, will be formed by reunifying two offices that had been split up after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in an effort to increase environmental oversight of the energy industry and prevent future oil disasters. After the split, the Interior Department’s oil-leasing activities were separated from environmental regulation and financial management. (emphasis added)

Comment: The assertion that the leasing and environmental regulation were separated is false. The leasing bureau (BOEM) was assigned lead responsibility for the review and approval of the fundamental operational planning documents – Exploration Plans, Development and Production Plans, and Development Operations Coordination Documents. This includes the environmental reviews pursuant to NEPA.

NYT: The move is “worrisome because it has the potential of bringing things back where they were, where there was this inherent conflict of interest between promotion of offshore oil and gas, and oversight safety,” according to Donald Boesch, emeritus professor at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science.

Comment: None of the investigations of Macondo provided evidence that conflicts of interest contributed to the blowout. On the contrary, the Chief Counsel for the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling, reported as follows (page 261):

“In recent years various bodies have concluded that certain MMS offices and programs have violated ethical rules or guidelines. In the wake of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, some questioned whether ethical lapses played any role in causing the blowout. The Chief Counsel‘s team found no evidence of any such lapses.“

Also, keep in mind that prior to the Macondo blowout, 25,000 wells had been drilled in US Federal waters over the previous 25 years without a single well control fatality, an offshore safety record that is unprecedented in the U.S. and internationally. 

For some reason, the NYT did not mention the offshore wind program. Perhaps the NYT should have looked at the relationship between the offshore wind industry and BOEM, most notably the decommissioning financial assurance and fabrication and installation report waivers.

NYT: The new bureau will also take on oversight of the Trump administration’s plans to lease waters in U.S. territories to deep-sea mining companies. The first of these sales, according to the spokeswoman for the Interior Department, are likely to happen next year.

Comment: DOI’s marine minerals program is decades old and is a priority for the current administration. Reorganization should not affect the MMA’s capability to oversee these activities.