WASHINGTON \u2014 The Trump administration said Friday it is combining two agencies that were separated in the aftermath of the 2010 Gulf oil spill. The U.S. Interior Department said the overhaul would increase efficiency and speed up permitting for offshore oil and gas drilling.<\/p>\n
The new Marine Minerals Administration will bring together the functions of the current U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said. Doing so will enable a \u201cstreamlined approach\u201d that will maintain existing regulatory protections and rigorous safety standards, he said. <\/p>\n
The combined agency will \u201cdeliver clearer coordination, better service to the public and stronger, more integrated oversight of offshore energy development,\u201d Burgum said in a statement. <\/p>\n
The new name is reminiscent of the old Minerals Management Service, which for decades was the federal agency responsible for overseeing offshore drilling. In April 2010, a deadly explosion destroyed BP\u2019s Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico, killing 11 people and discharging nearly five million barrels of crude oil into the sea over the next three months in the largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history.<\/p>\n
Lawmakers from both parties and outside critics accused the agency of lax oversight of drilling and cozy ties with industry. A 2008 report by the U.S. Interior Department\u2019s inspector general said employees accepted gifts, steered contracts to favoured clients and engaged in drug use and sex with employees of the energy firms they regulated.<\/p>\n
The head of the agency resigned in May 2010 \u2014 less than a year into her tenure \u2014 under public pressure as the Obama administration moved to impose stricter control over drilling in the wake of the spill.<\/p>\n
The U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement replaced the disbanded Minerals Management Service in 2011. The former agency\u2019s revenue management function was also separated into a new office. The Obama administration said the reorganization was designed to remove the complex and sometimes conflicting missions of the former agency.<\/p>\n
BOEM oversees development of oil and gas, as well as renewable energy and mining on the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf, while BSEE enforces safety and environmental regulations.<\/p>\n
Environmental groups slammed the reorganization as a replay of the agency\u2019s troubled past.<\/p>\n
The MMS was intentionally split up after the Gulf spill because regulators were too cozy with industry and \u201cwe couldn\u2019t trust the integrity of their work,\u201d said Miyoko Sakashita, oceans director at the Center for Biological Diversity.<\/p>\n
The new set-up \u201csounds like yet another handout to the oil industry that will fast-track risky projects. It sure won\u2019t make the people or wildlife on our coasts any safer,\u201d she wrote in an e-mail Friday.<\/p>\n
The National Ocean Industries Association, which represents offshore developers, said that two separate \u2014 yet overlapping \u2014 government agencies responsible for administering the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act can understandably result in inconsistencies and delays. <\/p>\n
\u201cBringing them back together should result in closer coordination and a more efficiently functioning government, for the benefit of American citizens who rely upon the energy produced from the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf to fuel our economy and lift society,\u201d Association President Erik Milito said in a statement.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
Jennifer Mcdermott And Matthew Daly, The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON \u2014 The Trump administration said Friday it is combining two agencies that were separated in the aftermath…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":584035,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[45,49,48,295,77,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-584034","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-environment","12":"tag-international","13":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/584034","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=584034"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/584034\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/584035"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=584034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=584034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=584034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}