At Trump offshore US aim some safety rule rollbacks

 To prevent blowouts like the BP catastrophe of 2010, on Monday, The U.S. Department of the Interior said that it wants to reverse some Trump administration rollbacks of offshore safety rules dealing with devices.

11 people were killed in this incident and fouled the Gulf of Mexico. To send failure data to the federal offshore safety agency rather than to designated third parties one proposed rule would require operators of oil and gas drilling rigs and production platforms. 

To begin failure analyses and investigations another would cut a month off the time allowed, from four months to three. 

Deb Haaland, Interior Secretary said in a news release that “To keep people safe this proposed rulemaking will help ensure that offshore energy development utilizes the latest science and technology”.  

“To strengthen and modernize we must commit offshore energy standards and oversight, as our nation transitions to a clean energy economy.”

Diane Hoskins of the ocean environmental nonprofit Oceana said that the changes are a step in the right direction but not far enough.

She said in an emailed statement that “No operator can promise there won’t be another disaster like BP’s Deepwater Horizon blowout. 

The only way is to permanently protect our coasts and workers from new offshore leasing to prevent offshore drilling disasters”.

In 2019 the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement acted under Trump to change rules put in place three years earlier while Barak Obama was president.

Director Kevin M. Sligh Sr. said during a phone news conference with Haaland that the agency is proposing to change seven out of the scores of revisions and additions made in 2019.

At a time when Trump’s Interior Department is also moving to expand drilling not just in the Gulf of Mexico, but eventually in the Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, over offshore oil and gas drilling the upshot is a weaker regulatory regime. 

The current head of BSEE, earlier this year said that the Obama administration overstepped when it put in place regulations on drilling.  The director of BSEE, Scott Angelle, said in June that “It was obvious to me that back then there was a conclusion that it was a systemic problem, and yet I don’t believe there was evidence at the time that it was a systemic problem”.

Since the 2010 incident BSEE now argues that the oil industry has learned from its mistakes and has incorporated changes and thus, does not need heavy government oversight.

Meanwhile, how the agency inspects offshore oil and gas operations BSEE also sent a stop-work order on a study that would evaluate. By the National Academies of Sciences Engineering the study, to be conducted, and Medicine, was initiated last year and was intended to figure out ways to improve inspections.

To accredit independent agencies he said one would require the bureau to inspect offshore rigs and equipment. 

In 2010 the equipment that failed another would require blowout preventers to always be able to handle the well’s maximum gas flow specifications.

To send failure data others would require operators to the federal offshore safety agency rather than to designated third parties, and would cut a month off the time allowed to begin failure analyses and investigations, allowing three months rather than four.

Erik Milito, president of the National Ocean Industries Association, which represents oil and gas companies said that “The 2019 revisions to the Well Control Rule addressed technical problems and cleared up ambiguity,” changing 68 of the original rule’s 342 provisions. “Any further updates should follow a similar tailored approach.”

In 2019 environmental groups sued by claiming that the changes would make oil and gas exploration and development off the Pacific, Atlantic, Alaska, and Gulf coasts “significantly more dangerous.”

Chris Eaton, senior attorney at Earth justice, which filed the lawsuit said that “To determine the best way forward with the lawsuit we are still reviewing the proposed rule.” 

About the effects of the nation’s scientists still worrying about the worst offshore oil spill on dolphins, whales, sea turtles, small fish vital to the food chain and ancient corals in the cold, dark depths.

The proposal opens a 60-day public comment period, which ends Nov. 14. 

Source:- https://usstudieson.com/at-trump-offshore-us-aim-some-safety-rule-rollbacks/