extension of comment period | Bud's Offshore Energy (BOE)

Posts Tagged ‘extension of comment period’

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.

Interesting decision, and not the one many of us expected.

API’s letter is attached. Key points:

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.