White House races to blunt attacks on offshore drilling policy

The White House is rushing to show that it’s boosting
environmental controls over offshore drilling as Capitol Hill probes of the
Gulf of Mexico oil spill turn toward allegations of lax Interior Department
oversight.

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee began the latest inquiry Friday, vowing to investigate “potential lapses in
oversight” in recent years by the Interior’s Minerals Management Service (MMS), which regulates
energy development in federal waters.

{mosads}The White House and Interior – in multiple statements Friday
– announced expanded reviews of the way federal regulators approve drilling
projects like the BP operation that went catastrophically astray in the Gulf.

“For too long, for a decade or more, there has been a cozy
relationship between the oil companies and the federal agency that permits them
to drill,” President Barack Obama said in Rose Garden remarks Friday. “It seems as if
permits were too often issued based on little more than assurances of safety
from the oil companies. That cannot and will not happen anymore.”

After Obama spoke, the administration announced that the
White House Council on Environmental Quality and Interior would jointly review
the way MMS conducts environmental reviews.

The review targets MMS’s implementation of
the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), a 40-year-old law that requires
federal agencies to analyze the ecological effects of their actions.

MMS has come under fire for granting exemptions – called
“categorical exclusions” – from detailed environmental analyses for some
projects, including the BP drilling that led to the ongoing Gulf of Mexico spill.

The waivers have caught the attention of lawmakers probing
the Gulf disaster. House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Nick Rahall
(D-W.Va.) wrote to Council on Environmental Quality Chairwoman Nancy Sutley
on Friday seeking documents about use of “categorical exclusions” for offshore
projects.

Hours after announcing the review of NEPA issues Friday,
Interior said it would also re-examine how oil-and-gas projects are reviewed
under endangered species laws.

The decision follows a report in the New York Times Friday
that MMS has routinely approved offshore drilling projects without first
securing permits from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
branch that oversees marine species protections.

Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), the chairman of the Energy and
Natural Resources Committee, on Friday called the allegations in the Times
report “very disturbing” and said that “we certainly need to get to the bottom
of it.”

More broadly, the administration’s announcements come as at
least five congressional committees are preparing for hearings next week on the
Gulf oil spill.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar will testify before
Bingaman’s panel and the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on May 18,
where he is sure to face questions about environmental review of drilling
plans.

Friday’s steps by the administration are the latest
of several pledges to improve offshore regulation in the wake of the April 20
explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig, which killed 11 workers and touched off
the ongoing spill that BP has been unable to contain.

The White House pledges of stricter controls also come just six weeks
after the administration announced it will greatly expand offshore
leasing in the 2012-2017 period. Those plans are facing increasing
attacks from environmentalists and some Democrats, who point to the
Gulf spill as a reason to reconsider.

The administration launched new inspections of offshore
platforms last month, and has halted issuance of new offshore drilling permits
until Interior completes a 30-day safety review later in May.

On May 11, Salazar said that he’s carving up the MMS,
which both regulates offshore drilling and collects billions of dollars in
royalties. He said he’s creating a new Interior environmental and safety agency
that will include what had been MMS’s inspection, investigation and enforcement
operations.

The troubled MMS was the subject of scathing
reviews by
Interior’s inspector general and congressional auditors during the Bush
administration, reports that often focused on failure to ensure
oil-and-gas producers were fully paying royalties. But some critics are
now alleging that Salazar has not acted
fast enough to reform the agency.

“Ken Salazar came into office announcing, ‘There is a new
sheriff in town,’ and promised to reform the deeply corrupt Minerals Management
Service. He took action regarding personal, criminal actions, but did
absolutely nothing to address the agency’s dangerous practice of
rubber-stamping offshore oil-drilling permits,” said Kieran Suckling, executive
director of the Center for Biological Diversity, in a statement Friday.

The Center on Thursday said it had filed a notice of intent
to sue Interior over its approval of offshore drilling projects. The group said
that Interior, under Salazar, has approved three offshore lease sales, more than 100
seismic surveys and more than 300 drilling operations without obtaining permits
required under the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act.