Democrats criticized Interior Department officials Wednesday for allowing companies to deviate hundreds of times from Obama-era offshore oil and gas drilling safety rules established after BP’s 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
Democrats questioning Interior officials at a House Natural Resources subcommittee hearing said Interior’s granting of nearly 1,700 waivers to companies over 20 months to the Well Control Rule demonstrates the Trump administration’s bias in favor of oil and gas companies.
Interior’s granting of the waivers, which was reported by Politico last month based on a public records request, comes as the Trump administration has proposed weakening the offshore drilling safety rules in question.
“It has dumbfounded our entire delegation after we put these rules in place to see them shredded to Swiss cheese right now,” said Rep. Darren Soto, D-Fla., of his fellow Florida lawmakers, all of whom oppose offshore drilling. “In the meantime, the administration has a duty to comply with current rules to make sure we don’t see 1,700 exemptions that could fail to protect Florida and other Gulf states from another BP oil spill.”
The original Well Control Rule, issued in 2016 by Interior’s Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, or BSEE, set minimum standards for drilling, well design, and equipment maintenance in hopes of preventing another major oil spill. Interior officials say the proposed changes reflects technical modifications sought by the industry, which oil and natural gas groups say are modest and meant to align with industry standards and are not a rollback of the regulation.
One proposed change to the rule would eliminate a requirement that BSEE must certify the third-party vendors who inspect offshore oil equipment, such as blowout preventers, for safety.
The 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill was caused by BP’s lack of maintenance of the blowout valve. The device is meant to prevent a surge in pressure from causing catastrophic explosions and spills.
According to Politico, the most common waivers to the Obama-era rule granted by Interior were intended to allow companies to veer from stricter rules for blowout preventers.
Interior officials, however, defended the granting of waivers, saying the exceptions are explicitly allowed in the Well Control Rule. Doug Morris, the chief of BSEE’s Office of Offshore Regulatory Programs, disputed the term “waivers,” saying the agency actually granted “alternative compliance requests” which are reviewed carefully by regional offices of the offshore safety agency to ensure the proposed action remains safe.
Republicans also defended Interior’s actions, saying companies have sought ways to work around the safety rules because they are overly burdensome.
“It’s evidence that the rule clearly imposes unrealistic requirements and waivers are necessary,” said Rep. Kevin Hern, R-Okla.
Rep. Alan Lowenthal, D-Calif., the chairman of the Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources, suggested the waivers and Interior’s revisiting of the safety rules show the agency favors the oil and gas industry. He criticized BSEE Director Scott Angelle for not complying with his request to testify at the hearing and instead sending career officials.
“The director in charge [of BSEE] is supposed to be the nation’s top offshore cop, to hold industry accountable for lapses in safety and environmental protection,” Lowenthal said. “Instead, Director Angelle has referred to the oil and gas industry as partners and encouraged them to call him on his cell phone so it won’t generate public records.”
Lowenthal and Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., the chairman of the Natural Resources Committee, sent a letter to Angelle Wednesday reiterating a prior request of his phone records. They cited a New York Times report that Angelle offered his cell phone number to attendees of an energy conference in 2017 so conversations with industry officials could not be subject to public records requests.
