Embargo will limit US oversight of planned oil drilling off Cuba coast

Obama administration officials are keeping a watchful eye on Cuba’s offshore drilling projects for fear that an oil spill could threaten America’s coast.
 
But the U.S. embargo against Cuba limits the extent to which officials can ensure that companies are complying with stringent safety and environmental standards.
 

So far, the Obama administration has circumvented the Cuban government by working directly with the Spanish oil company Repsol, which plans to begin drilling in Cuban waters in January.
 
Michael Bromwich, the Obama administration’s top offshore drilling regulator, told a Senate committee Tuesday that Repsol has been cooperative with U.S. officials. The company, which also does business in the United States, has promised to meet the new safety and environmental standards imposed by the Obama administration after last year’s massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
 
But Bromwich, director of Interior’s Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE), acknowledged Tuesday that U.S. oversight of Cuban drilling is limited. The only way the United States can ensure that offshore drilling in the country is safe is through voluntary agreements with companies like Repsol.
 
“We can’t obviously direct Cuba to impose our standards, so our exclusive vehicle is through the operator,” Bromwich said at a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing.
 
Bromwich said the Interior Department and U.S. Coast Guard plan to inspect a Repsol oil rig that will be used in Cuba. Officials will have to inspect the rig before it enters Cuban waters, due to the embargo.
 
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said he is concerned that other companies planning to drill in Cuba won’t be as cooperative.
 
“Basically, the only leverage we have is companies that are doing business in the United States,” Manchin said. “If they’re not in our waters, then we have no leverage whatsoever.”
 
Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) told reporters after the hearing that the embargo is a barrier to ensuring safe drilling in Cuba.
 
“I’ve supported repeal of the embargo since I’ve been in the Senate,” he said.
 
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), the top Republican on the committee, told reporters that officials should not focus solely on Cuba, but instead ensure that other countries such as Mexico drill safely.
 
“Let’s not just isolate this to a Cuban issue — it’s a reality that you’ve got exploration going all around the globe offshore,” Murkowski said.
 
“It’s not just Cuba. It’s Mexico; it’s Jamaica; it’s the Bahamas; it’s Canada; it’s Russia; it’s everybody that has water around their nation that is looking to explore and produce. The focus was Cuba. But I’m not going to get hung up on whether we need to now lift the embargoes against Cuba.”
 
Repsol will use a semi-submersible mobile rig called Scarabeo 9 to begin drilling in Cuban waters in January 2012. Bromwich said administration officials are intimately familiar with the design of the rig, as well as its ability to prevent blowouts.
 
“We will do all available and possible inspections,” Bromwich said. His agency recently worked with Repsol on a spill-response exercise in Trinidad.
 
“During the exercise, Repsol’s spill-management team mobilized to respond to a hypothetical spill and demonstrated response equipment deployment capabilities,” Bromwich said.
 
At the hearing, lawmakers raised concerns about offshore drilling projects in a number of countries near the U.S. coast, including the Bahamas, Mexico, Russia and Canada.
 
“The actions of our marine neighbors are important to consider as well,” Bingaman said. “As people have already said, oil spills do not respect our boundaries.”
 
The administration is working closely with Mexico and other countries to develop a common set of safety standards. The Interior Department, for example, hosted an April conference in Washington in which officials from a dozen countries and the European Union discussed drilling safety. Because of the nature of the United States’s relationship with Cuba, officials from the country did not participate in the conference.
 
Bromwich told reporters Tuesday that U.S. officials know little about Cuban drilling-safety regulations.
 
“We don’t know a lot about the Cuban oversight regime,” Bromwich said. “I think the information that we received suggests that it’s not highly developed.”
 
In the event of an oil spill in Cuban waters that threatens the United States, the Obama administration “would mount an immediate response,” Vice Adm. Brian Salerno, deputy commandant for operations at the Coast Guard, said at the hearing Tuesday.
 
The Coast Guard would “focus on combating the spill offshore using all available response tactics,” Salerno said, noting that a response would “require a unity of effort across all areas of government, industry and the private sector.”

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