Houston offshore attorney backs BOEMRE efforts to regulate drilling safety

The director of the Interior Department's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement has a warning to the offshore oil industry:  expect tougher drilling safety rules.

"We anticipate the advance notice of rulemaking will be extremely broad," BOEMRE head Michael Bromwich said.

Contractors should be held "responsible for their actions, even while continuing to hold lessees responsible," he added, saying that federal law gives his agency clear authority.

One of the key areas of enhanced standards would be to ensure improvements to blow-out preventers (BOPs).

Maritime attorneys support tougher safety laws to prevent disasters such as the Deepwater Horizon explosion, which killed 11 workers on April 20, 2010 and triggered the biggest oil spill in U.S. history.

"The safety of the men and women who make the business run should be paramount," said attorney Brian Beckcom of Vujasinovic and Beckcom, a Houston maritime law firm. 

"Unfortunately, production often trumps safety. That must change."

Bromwich's remarks came as a prelude to the anticipated release this month of the joint Coast Guard and BOEMRE final report on last year's BP oil spill. However, the release has been delayed pending more time to completely evaluate the evidence, the investigative team announced in a statement.

Source: New Orleans Times Picayune