Offshore drilling agencies may merge
Organizations had been divided after Deepwater Horizon disaster
WASHINGTON — After the 2010 Gulf oil spill, the Obama administration broke the scandal-plagued federal agency that policed offshore drilling into separate bureaus.
Now the Trump administration is considering putting it back together again.
The change, described by Interior Department officials and lobbyists familiar with the deliberations, would combine two agencies: one that enforces regulations on offshore drilling safety and another in charge of leasing offshore tracts. Keeping those roles separate was a key recommendation of a presidential commission that investigated the Deepwater Horizon blast that killed 11 and sent oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico for months.
Merging the bureaus could send a signal that Interior is easing off on enforcement, right as President Donald Trump expands areas available for offshore oil drilling, according to Bob Graham, a former Florida senator who led the commission.
“I have heard no indication of why we’re doing this,” Graham said. “It’s just seven years after this enormous disaster — and this was one of the key steps in at least mitigating the chances of a repetition.”
Officials are still weighing the reorganization, according to the people, who declined to be identified, discussing internal deliberations. Interior Department spokesmen didn’t respond to requests to comment on the possible change.
For decades before the BP oil spill, federal regulation of offshore energy development was handled by a single agency within the Department of Interior: the Minerals Management Service. Its biggest claim to fame was a wide-ranging ethics scandal during the administration of President George W. Bush that involved cocaine use, sexual misconduct and financial self-dealing by a handful of employees, which was documented in multiple probes.
The episode highlighted an uncomfortably cozy relationship between the oil and gas industry drilling offshore and the federal regulators who were supposed to keep a watch over them. Two years later, when BP’s failed Macondo well blew out in the Gulf of Mexico, those concerns erupted anew.
Within weeks, with oil still gushing into the Gulf, the administration of President Barack Obama announced it was shuttering the MMS and carving it up into three agencies. Besides the leasing and enforcement bureaus, a third office would act as a piggy bank, collecting billions of dollars annually in royalties, rental payments and bonus bids tied to offshore energy development.
That last agency, the Office of Natural Resources Revenue, would be untouched by the organizational plans now under consideration by Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke. The two agencies that would be combined are the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement and the leasing-focused Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.
Zinke has said he’s looking at reorganizing the entire Interior Department with an eye on empowering regional officials and improving collaboration. That could involve creating regional hubs to coordinate Interior agencies with overlapping roles and missions that are at cross purposes. The effort could allow energy companies to get quicker project approvals.