Salazar: Drilling ban study due soon

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said Wednesday that his top offshore energy regulator will deliver a report in coming weeks on “whether and how” the department will alter the controversial freeze on deepwater oil-and-gas drilling.

The White House is under immense pressure from the oil industry, Republicans and Gulf Coast lawmakers from both parties to lift the six-month ban imposed after the BP oil spill began.

It’s slated to last until the end of November, but Michael Bromwich — who heads Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management — has held meetings around the country on drilling policy and needed safeguards that will inform possible changes.

“Director Bromwich is currently analyzing the information he has collected and is developing recommendations on whether and how we will adjust the temporary deepwater drilling suspension,” Salazar said at a forum on toughening blowout containment capabilities. “He will deliver a report to me in the next several weeks.”

A copy of Salazar’s prepared remarks suggest a report is even more imminent — they indicate Bromwich will provide the report “in the very near future.”

Interior has issued several new safety requirements in recent months and overhauled its offshore drilling oversight structure.

Salazar said at the forum, held at Interior headquarters, that the BP spill revealed that neither the government nor the oil industry were prepared for such disasters.