Trump Administration Proposes Rolling Back Oil-Spill Rules

the changes would save the oil industry about $900 million

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robert99 Sweden • Posts: 1360

1 28 Dec 2017

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/12/trump-administration-proposes-rolling-back-oil-spill-rules.html

In its latest flurry of anti-regulatory activity, the Trump administration is seeking to rescind rules put in place by President Obama after the catastrophic Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010, The Wall Street Journal reports:

The proposed rule would relax requirements to stream real-time data on oil-production operations to facilities onshore, where they currently are available to be reviewed by government regulators. It also would strike a provision requiring third-party inspectors of critical equipment — like the blowout preventer that failed in the Deepwater Horizon case — be certified by BSEE.

The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement says the changes would save the oil industry about $900 million over the next decade. And in this administration, the financial well-being of that sector tends to take precedence over everything: safety, the environment, baby seals, you name it.

The bureau is leaving in place a rule involving how much pressure drillers can maintain as they build a well. But in a quintessentially Trumpian flourish, it’s removing the word safe from that regulation, because it found that the word “creates ambiguity in that it could be read to suggest that additional unspecified standards, beyond those expressly stated, may be imposed in the approval of proposed drilling margins.”

As the old rule goes, when it comes to protecting life and land from potential environmental calamity, it’s best to err on the side of recklessness.

robert99 Sweden • Posts: 1360

2 29 Dec 2017

http://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/energy/article/Trump-administration-rescinding-rules-for-oil-12460732.php

Trump administration rescinding rules for oil, gas drilling -
Administration dropping proposed regulations on hydraulic fracturing on government lands

The long-awaited change drew praise from industry groups including the Washington, D.C.-based Independent Petroleum Association of America and Denver-based Western Energy Alliance, which sued to block the rules.

They claimed the federal rules would have duplicated state rules, putting unnecessary and expensive burdens on petroleum developers.

"States have an exemplary safety record regulating fracking, and that environmental protection will continue as before," Western Energy Alliance President Kathleen Sgamma said in a release.

Fracking has been so successful in boosting production over the past decade it has become almost synonymous with oil and gas drilling. In many areas, it would be rare nowadays for a gas or oil well to not be fracked.

The process requires several million gallons of water each time. Environmentalists say the potential risks to groundwater require regulation.

"Fracking is a toxic business, and that's why states and countries have banned it. Trump's reckless decision to repeal these common-sense protections will have serious consequences," Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in an email.