Drilling safety committee to begin its work

Federal officials, oil-and-gas industry leaders and academics will meet April 18 in Washington to begin developing policy recommendations for the Interior Department on offshore energy development.

It will be the first meeting of the Ocean Energy Safety Advisory Committee. The committee was established by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar in January as part of a broad effort within the department to ensure safe offshore energy development in the aftermath of last year’s massive oil spill.

“This Committee is a key component of a long-term strategy to address on a continuing basis the technological needs and inherent risks associated with offshore drilling, and deepwater drilling in particular,” said Michael Bromwich, the director of Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE). 

“The challenge facing government and industry in the months and years ahead is to ensure that we do not once again become complacent about the risks of offshore drilling, but rather that we continue to make progress in developing state-of-the-art safety, containment and response capabilities.”

The meetings comes as BOEMRE has issued eight Gulf deepwater drilling permits for the type of project that was halted after last year’s spill. The permits have been issued under a series of beefed-up safety regulations.

But the oil industry and many Republicans have bashed BOEMRE for not moving quickly enough to expand drilling in the Gulf.