Bill for changes to offshore permitting

Senators Mark Begich and Lisa Murkowski, accompanied by a dozen other senators, have introduced a bipartisan bill in Congress to make what the senators say will be major improvements to the permitting process for oil and gas exploration on the U.S. outer continental shelf, Sen. Begich announced June 17. Called “The Offshore Energy and Jobs Permitting Act,” the bill would address some issues encountered by oil company Shell in its efforts to permit exploratory drilling in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas. Parallel legislation has been introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives.

The Senate bill would require air emissions from drilling activities to be measured onshore, rather than offshore, with clarification that a drilling vessel would be regulated as a stationary source after the start of drilling, Begich said.

Appeals over Environmental Protection Agency permitting decisions would go direct to federal court, rather than through the Environmental Appeals Board. And EPA would have to issue a permitting decision within six months of the filing of a permit application.

“EPA has been struggling for years to reinvent the wheel and companies who have spent billions to create American jobs have paid the price,” Begich said. “This legislation is just one more tool in the box to get us moving on much-needed domestic oil and gas.”

In April Begich also introduced legislation to create a lease and permit coordinating office for the Alaska OCS.

Shell’s planned OCS drilling has been delayed several years in the face of appeals and litigation over OCS permitting, with appeals over EPA air quality permits being one of the biggest hurdles that the company has had to face. Unlike in the Gulf of Mexico, where the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement handles air quality permitting for drilling operations, EPA handles air quality permitting on the Alaska OCS.

—Alan Bailey