Obama Admin: No More Regulatory Shortcuts for Deepwater Drilling Projects

[kpete]

Source: ProPublica

Obama Admin: No More Regulatory Shortcuts for Deepwater Drilling Projects

by Marian Wang
ProPublica, Today, 12:01 p.m.


The Obama administration announced Monday that it is no longer fast-tracking offshore drilling projects in deep water by exempting them from detailed environmental review. Specifically, that means projects that use either a subsurface blowout preventer or a blowout preventer on a floating rig will need significantly more environmental review before drilling is allowed.

The exemptions, as we’ve noted, are exclusions to the National Environmental Policy Act, and they’ve long been used <1> to speed the permit process for oil companies and to lighten the paperwork for regulators. These exclusions were expansive <1>, covering the entire central and western part of the Gulf of Mexico—including BP’s plan to drill its “nightmare well” in the Gulf.


Since the Gulf spill, the Obama administration has been revisiting the way drilling projects like BP’s got fast-tracked under these exclusions, which were originally meant to avoid detailed environmental reviews for activities that were sure to have no significant environmental impact.

“In light of the increasing levels of complexity and risk – and the consequent potential environmental impacts – associated with deepwater drilling, we are taking a fresh look at the NEPA process and the types of environmental reviews that should be required for offshore activity,” Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said in a statement <2>.

Read more: http://www.propublica.org/blog/item/no-more-regulatory-shortcuts-for-deepwater-drilling-projects