HOME PAGE SUBSCRIPTIONS, Print Editions, Newsletter PRODUCTS READ THE PETROLEUM NEWS ARCHIVE! ADVERTISING INFORMATION EVENTS PETROLEUM NEWS BAKKEN MINING NEWS

Providing coverage of Alaska and northern Canada's oil and gas industry
August 2010

Vol. 15, No. 34 Week of August 22, 2010

Deepwater ‘categorical exemptions’ halted

The Obama administration announced Aug. 16 that it is requiring environmental reviews for all new deepwater oil drilling.

The announcement came in response to a report by the White House Council on Environmental Quality, which found that decades-old data provided the basis for exempting BP’s drilling permits from any extensive review.

The Interior Department said the ban on so-called “categorical exclusions” for deepwater drilling would be in place pending full review of how such exemptions are granted.

“Our decision-making must be fully informed by an understanding of the potential environmental consequences of federal actions permitting offshore oil and gas development,” Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said in a statement.

Shallow-water drilling will also be subjected to stricter environmental scrutiny under the new policy.

The report by the Council on Environmental Quality report says that the exclusions BP operated under were written in 1981 and 1986. That was long before the boom in deepwater drilling that was propelled by the development of dramatic new technologies for reaching deep into the sea floor.

The report also finds other problems with how MMS applied environmental laws in reviewing the BP project. It notes, for example, that in assessing the likelihood of a major spill, MMS did not consider the example of the disastrous 1979 Ixtoc spill in the Gulf — simply because the spill was not in U.S. waters.

MMS’ successor agency, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Enforcement and Regulation, is agreeing to recommendations to try to improve gas and oil drilling oversight, including pushing for more time to review exploration plans, and performing more comprehensive site-specific environmental reviews.

—The Associated Press





Copyright 2003 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistrubuted.

Petroleum News - Phone: 1-907 522-9469 - Fax: 1-907 522-9583
[email protected] --- http://www.petroleumnews.com ---
S U B S C R I B E

Copyright Petroleum Newspapers of Alaska, LLC (Petroleum News)(PNA)©2013 All rights reserved. The content of this article and web site may not be copied, replaced, distributed, published, displayed or transferred in any form or by any means except with the prior written permission of Petroleum Newspapers of Alaska, LLC (Petroleum News)(PNA). Copyright infringement is a violation of federal law subject to criminal and civil penalties.