Industry group to MMS: Clarify drilling rules

“It is certainly a time for extreme caution and enhanced awareness of safety and well integrity and those in the business are most keenly aware that drilling is a matter not to be taken lightly,” the letter states. “However, it is not a time for a lengthy and undefined ban or suspension on all drilling.”

The Obama administration has placed new limits on drilling as it explores safeguards needed in the wake of the BP oil spill.

There is a six-month ban on new deepwater drilling permits while a bipartisan commission explores the “root causes” of the spill and needed reforms in laws, rules and industry practices. The administration has also halted work at 33 existing deepwater projects.

Drilling in waters less than 500 feet deep is allowed with new safeguards, but the extent to which new shallow-water wells may proceed — and how quickly — has become a source of confusion. The letter notes that MMS has recently pulled back some shallow-water permits, and alleges this “sends a signal” that a ban is in place on both shallow-water and deepwater wells.

The letter also joins Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) and Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) in bashing the ban on deepwater permits, alleging it will result in “crippling job loss.”

Vitter, in a separate letter to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar on Monday, also calls for lifting the deepwater ban that Vitter says “will cost us more jobs and economic devastation than the oil spill itself.”

“In light of that, I again ask the president to immediately instruct his Deepwater Horizon commission to give him precise safety enhancement recommendations as soon as possible, even as the commission continues with its full work leading to a final report in six months,” Vitter writes. “This would allow new safety measures and inspections to be put in place very soon, to be accompanied by the lifting of the moratorium, all hopefully in a matter of a few weeks, not six months or more.”