Bureau of Ocean Energy director explains offshore drilling reforms to Baker Institute conference

BY FRANZ BROTZEN
Rice News staff

“We have undertaken the most aggressive and comprehensive reform of offshore oil-and-gas regulation and oversight in U.S. history,” Michael Bromwich told a capacity crowd Feb. 11 at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy. Bromwich, director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, was the keynote speaker at a daylong conference on the aftereffects of the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico last April.

That explosion led to the largest oil spill in U.S. history and threatened Gulf ecosystems, the local Gulf Coast economy and the future of U.S. offshore drilling. Bromwich was named June 15, 2010, to head the newly created bureau that replaced the Minerals Management Service (MMS).

	Michael Bromwich, director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, was the keynote speaker at a Feb. 11 conference on the aftereffects of the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico.

Pointing to his goal for the bureau to act as a “tough-mined but fair regulator,” Bromwich explained the steps he and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar have taken to address the shortcomings of the old MMS. “We’re separating resource management from safety oversight to allow permitting engineers and inspectors, whose job is essential to overseeing safe operations, greater independence, more budgetary autonomy and clearer missions and leadership focus than they’ve had in the past,” he said.

The conference, titled “U.S. Offshore Oil Exploration: Managing Risks to Move Forward,” examined the policy implications of the disaster in light of new scientific and technical information, with lectures and panel discussion by academic scholars from Rice, the University of Texas at Austin, Texas A&M, Tulane University and Louisiana State University along with policymakers and industry and political leaders.

The reorganization of the federal government’s role in policing oil and gas companies operating on the Outer Continental Shelf included the creation of three separate divisions, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) and the Office of Natural Resources Revenue (ONRR).

The BOEM, Bromwich said, “will be responsible for managing development of the nation’s offshore resources. This involves ensuring that the environment is protected and that the nation’s offshore energy resources — including oil, gas and renewable resources — are developed wisely, economically and in the nation’s best interests.” The BSEE, he said, “will independently and rigorously enforce safety and environmental regulations.” The ONRR handles revenue collection.

The far-reaching reforms of the bureaucracy were necessary, Bromwich said, because of the problems that came to light after last year’s devastating oil spill. Those problems included collusion between the energy industry and the people who were charged with regulating them. “The need for tough rules defining the boundaries between regulators and the regulated is both necessary, compelling and long overdue,” Bromwich told the Baker Institute audience.

Among the specific steps taken to deal with the issues raised by the Deepwater Horizon disaster, Bromwich cited the Drilling Safety Rule, which imposes new standards for well design, cementing and casing equipment, and the Workplace Safety Rule, which aims to reduce human and organizational errors.

On the controversial decision to delay approving new permits for deep-water drilling, Bromwich strove to strike a balance. “The fact is that although industry has been working hard, it has not yet been able to fully demonstrate that it has the equipment and systems in place to respond to a blowout in deep water,” he said. “It would simply be irresponsible to approve new deep-water drilling before we have an answer to the simple but compelling question: What if there was a blowout — how would you control it?”

Bromwich seemed to want to reassure members of the drilling industry in the audience, telling them, “We are working hard to ensure that this very important industry continues to be able to operate fully and successfully,” and that he does not “anticipate further emergency rule makings, period.” But he cautioned, “retreat on drilling safety is simply not an option.”

To view a webcast of the event, go to http://edtech.rice.edu/www/?option=com_iwebcast&task=webcast&action=details&event=2401.