President Donald Trump is moving ahead with his plan to significantly weaken offshore drilling regulations enacted by his predecessor to prevent a repeat of the horrific Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion that tragically killed 11 rig workers in April 2010.
Trumps’ Revised Well Control to Take Effect in December
The regulations being targeted by the Trump Administration are known collectively as the “Well Control Rule”.
Finalized by the Obama Administration in 2016, the Well Control Rule largely centered on the blowout preventer systems that are used aboard offshore drilling platforms to prevent the uncontrolled release of oil from a well.
The failure of the Deepwater Horizon’s blowout preventer has been cited as one of the major causes of that catastrophe.
Slated to take effect on December 27, 2018, Trump’s weakened Well Control Rule will, among other things:
- Rescind a requirement for independent verification of safety measures and equipment used aboard offshore platforms.
- Remove a requirement that offshore equipment be designed to function in the “most extreme” conditions involving weather, high heat, strong winds, or high pressure from within an undersea well.
- Eliminate a requirement that professional engineers certify certain pieces of offshore drilling equipment for new wells.
Trump’s Rollback of Offshore Drilling Regulations Echo Industry Wish-List
According to The New York Times, the new rules appear to reflect a wish-list from the American Petroleum Institute, an oil industry lobbying group.
The Interior Department’s Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement characterized the previous regulations as “unduly burdensome” for the industry and asserted that the rollback would encourage increased domestic oil and gas production and facilitate the Trump Administration’s goal of “energy dominance.”
The Bureau also maintains that the weakened regulations will not negatively impact worker safety or environmental protection.
Watered-Down Offshore Regulations Allow Drillers to Prioritize Profits Over Safety
However, advocates for workers and the environment disagree sharply.
“It’s madness to expand dangerous offshore drilling while making it even less safe. This reckless administration is risking catastrophic oil spills along every U.S. coastline,” Miyoko Sakashita, ocean program director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement issued Friday. “By willfully ignoring Deepwater Horizon’s lessons, Trump is displaying disdain for even modest environmental protections.”
Diane Hoskins, the campaign director for offshore drilling at Oceana, told The New York Times that the new rules would allow offshore drillers to prioritize profits over safety.
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