New York City Comptroller Mark Levine has urged ExxonMobil shareholders to reject the proposal to move their corporate headquarters to Texas, which he claims has “less robust” shareholder rights. Apparently, he would rather that XOM remain in a State where they can more easily be targeted for frivolous law suits.
James Copland, Senior Fellow and Director of Legal Policy at the Manhattan Institute : “rather than focus on improving New York City’s business climate, the comptroller is more interested in opposing ExxonMobil’s proposed redomiciling from New Jersey to Texas, solidifying its operations in a less hostile business environment.”
Mr. Levine’s chutzpah is indeed impressive, even by NYC standards, but shareholders will not vote against their own financial interest.
ExxonMobil’s move means that the three feature pieces of John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil legacy will now be domiciled in Texas – Standard Oil of New Jersey (Exxon), Standard Oil of New York (Mobil), and Standard Oil of California (Chevron).
California Attorney General Bonta asks the Court to stay Energy Secretary Wright’s Order directing Sable, under the Defense Production Act to restart production and preliminarily enjoin Defendants, and all those acting in concert with Defendants (i.e. Sable), from enforcing or relying on it. See the attached Federal Court filing.
The AG’s irreparable harm and public interest arguments seem particularly weak, and this may not be the best time to attempt to halt a 20+% increase in California oil production.
Requesting a 60 day extension (double the comment period specified by BOEM)
Need more time to:
review the detailed proposed changes
conduct studies to inform agency
analyze the studies and data
consider alternatives
organize, complete, and review the findings of subject matter workgroups
In API’s favor:
Agencies have discretion on extending comment periods.
60 days is typically considered the minimum comment period; 90 days would have been more appropriate for this proposal.
API members are clearly affected parties.
The BOEM proposal relaxes financial assurance requirements for smaller companies while increasing predecessor lessee risk exposure. Those predecessors would typically be API members.
There are divisions within the industry which complicate trade association commenting.
On the other hand:
API’s letter is dated May 1, just one week prior to the end of the comment period.
The letter was not posted at Regulations.gov until May 6, 2 days before the end of the comment period. Only those tracking the comment letters would have been aware of the request even at this late date.
As of early this morning (May 7th), the docket still specifies a May 8 due date for comments.
An extension could be viewed as inequitable to other concerned parties who made special efforts to honor the deadline.
Comments:
This is why it’s best to specify a reasonable comment period at the time the regulation is proposed, and make it clear that there will be no extension. That way, everyone is treated the same.
For this proposal, 90 days would have been reasonable.
Given the number of significant issues that need to be addressed, the best outcome for this rule would be a re-proposal. See the comments submitted by John Smith and me.
Attached are my comments on BOEM’s proposed revisions to the decommissioning financial assurance regulations. These comments were submitted to Regulations.gov yesterday (3 days early đ). Bud
Concluding Remarks
MMAâs highest priority must be assuring that facilities are safely decommissioned without public funding. Supplemental financial assurance determinations and lease assignment approvals must be consistent with that priority. Â
Predecessor liability is an important financial assurance principle, but legal boundaries and administrative procedures must be clearly established.Â
Safety and compliance are inextricably related to financial performance, and must be considered in determining supplemental assurance requirements.Â
Using reserve estimates to reduce supplemental assurance exposes taxpayers to geologic and accounting risks.Â
Unacceptable public risks have resulted from financial assurance decisions intended to advance offshore wind development.
The transition reflects more than a decade of operational experience managing offshore resources. ByâŻconsolidatingâŻthe planning, permitting, inspection, and enforcement responsibilities currently divided between BOEM and BSEE, the Department aims to:
Improve coordination and consistency Â
Reduce duplication of efforts Â
Strengthen oversight and environmental safeguards Â
Modernize organizational structure Â
All current regulatory responsibilities and protections will remain in place throughout the transition. There will be no disruption to permitting, environmental reviews, or enforcement activities.
What to Expect
Phased Transition: Internal alignment activities begin soon.
No Regulatory Rollbacks: ExistingâŻrequirementsâŻremainâŻin full effect. Â
New Website and Branding: The Marine Minerals Administrationâs full digital presence will launch in the coming months. Â
Bluepoint Wind Lease 0537 owned by Global Infrastructure Partners, a part of BlackRock, and Ocean Wind (Engie, France and EDP Renewables, Portugal)Golden State Wind Lease 0564 owned by Ocean Wind (Engie, France and EDP Renewables, Portugal) and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board
These are mutually beneficial “Win-Win” agreements. Bluepoint and Golden State benefit by escaping bad business decisions:
Bluepoint massively overpaid ($765 million) for Atlantic lease 0537 during the brief irrational exuberance era of the offshore wind program. The intense bidding was driven by the lure of subsidies, guaranteed power sales, unprecedented Federal and State promotion, peak climate activism, inattention to mounting public opposition, and irrational expectations regarding the role of offshore wind in powering the economy.
The value of Atlantic wind leases declined by 99.4% between 2022 and 2024, and this was before the Presidential election!
Golden State bid $150 million for a wind lease that will require floating turbines. The 50 MW Kincardine Offshore Windfarm, which is billed as the âworldâs largest floating wind farm,â experienced a ÂŁ30 million loss in 2023 following a ÂŁ18 million loss in 2022. Another floating wind project, Hywind Scotland, had to be taken offline for 4 months for maintenance after less than 6 years of operation. BOEM was forced to âpostponeâ the Oregon wind sale given the absence of bidders.
Significant work had not yet begun on either the Bluepoint or Golden State projects.
Many in Morro Bay and elsewhere along the Central Coast of California are not pleased with the attempt to “industrialize the coast.” Opposition to offshore wind projects is now well established along the Atlantic Coast.
The companies get to invest their inflated wind dollars in profitable energy projects without penalty. What prudent executive wouldn’t jump at the deal?
Waiting for the next Administration is not likely to improve the fundamental economics of offshore wind development, and increased subsidies are not popular.
A pro-wind govt would facilitate permitting, but is unlikely to buyback existing leases.
The Administration also benefits:
Two more wind leases are off the books.
Removing one of three leases could significantly affect the economics of Central Coast (CA) wind development.
Agreements were necessary because it’s difficult to cancel leases, and compensation would be required. If settled in court, the compensation could easily exceed the lease purchase price.
The companies agreed not to pursue any new offshore wind projects in the United States.
The rebates will be invested in projects favored by the Administration.
Question: Are the partners and parent companies also precluded from investing in offshore wind projects or just the Bluepoint Wind and Golden State Wind entities? If BlackRock, EDP, and Engie can no longer make such investments, that is a big deal. This is especially true given the agreement with Total, Vineyard Wind’s problems, Orsted’s financial challenges, BP and Shell’s apparent exit from the US offshore wind market, and Equinor’s reduced renewable energy ambitions.
Finally, a December 7, 2022 release by the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board heralding the 50% partnership in Golden State Wind might be of interest to our Canadian readers. That bad investment can now be removed from the books.
Dirk Kempthorne participating in Lease Sale 206 which garnered a record $3.7 billion in high bids!
I was saddened to learn about the passing of Dirk Kempthorne, Secretary of the Interior from 2006-2009. He was a supporter of responsible offshore oil and gas development, and oversaw six lease sales and the continued growth of the deepwater sector.
One of those lease sales generated a record $3.7 billion in high bids (photo above). Lars Herbst was the Minerals Management Service’s Regional Director at the time.
I had the pleasure of briefing the Secretary on a couple of occasions and found him to be very personable, attentive, and intelligent. My colleagues were similarly impressed.
The Secretary was also known to ride his motorcycle to the Interior building on occasion. He is pictured on his Harley below, but this photo was taken in Idaho, not Washington. đ
The organizers of the 2007 IRF Offshore Safety Conference were most pleased when Secretary Kempthorne agreed to participate as a keynote speaker. Our many international guests were impressed by his remarks and his interaction with the conference delegates. His conference bio and those of the other speakers are attached.
RIP Mr. Secretary! You served the country well. Enjoy cruising on that big motorcycle in the sky!
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.
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 Departmentâs 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 âworrisome 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,â according to Donald Boesch, emeritus professor at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science.
“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 Counselâs team found no evidence of any such lapses.“
NYT:The new bureau will also take on oversight of the Trump administrationâs 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.
Bud's Offshore Energy (BOE) 
BOEM extends comment period on the financial assurance proposal, but only by one week!
Posted in decommissioning, energy policy, Regulation, tagged BOEM, decommissioning, extension of comment period, financial assurance, proposed regulation on May 7, 2026| Leave a Comment »
BOEM has extended the public comment period and will accept comments on the proposed rule through 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time on May 15, 2026.Â
Interesting decision, and not the one many of us expected.
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