As previously reported, the Fifth Circuit in September ruled that the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) has no criminal jurisdiction under its current regulations over offshore contractors (USA v. Moss,...more
Since October 2011, when the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) issued its first-ever Incidents of Non-Compliance (INCs) against offshore contractors (Halliburton and Transocean) in the wake of the...more
In a sweeping move that has been widely and vociferously praised by supporters and passionately decried by opponents, the Customs and Border Patrol Agency (CBP) on the second-to-last day of the Obama administration’s tenure,...more
Following on this week’s series regarding the new batch of four USCG-BSEE MOUs, this post will discuss the fourth, concerning safety systems.
Perhaps one of the most confounding and critical areas of overlap between the...more
Following on this week’s series regarding the new batch of four USCG-BSEE MOUs, this post will discuss the third, concerning incident reporting.
Hand in glove with the civil penalties and SEMS/SMS MOUs (the latter to be...more
Following on this week’s series regarding the new batch of four USCG-BSEE MOUs, this post will discuss the second, concerning oil spill planning, preparedness and response.
The second of the January 17, 2017 MOUs...more
For the past few years, this blog has attempted to chart the fraught and developing regulatory overlap between the United States Coast Guard (USCG) and Bureau of Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) in the fallout from the...more
In a dramatic reversal of a prior and equally dramatic, watershed administrative decision of the Interior Bureau of Land Appeals (IBLA) upholding the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement’s (BSEE) regulatory...more
In 2006, the Fifth Circuit issued a landmark controversial opinion in Texaco Exploration & Production, Inc. v. AmClyde Engineered Products Co., 448 F.3d 760, 770 (5th Cir.) amended on reh’g, 453 F.3d 652 (5th Cir. 2006). The...more
As previously reported on Striding the Quarterdeck, district courts within the federal Fifth Circuit had split over recent years as to whether the Texas and Louisiana Oilfield Anti-Indemnity Acts (TOAIA, Tex. Civ. Prac. &...more
“Constituents Of Chaos” – Administrative Appellate Decision Confirms Bureau Of Safety And Environmental Enforcement Jurisdiction Over Offshore Contractors The classification of the constituents of a chaos, nothing less is...more
In yet another twist in the tortured labors of the Hercules jurisprudence regarding removal of general maritime law claims under 28 U.S.C. §1441(a), the Eastern District of Louisiana has generated a new, divergent “head” on...more
In the new world of shared regulatory oversight between the United States Coast Guard (USCG) and BSEE on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS), a mundane devil-in-the-details – but nonetheless vitally important question – had...more
The United States Coast Guard (USCG) Marine Safety and Security Council issued the winter issue of its quarterly magazine Proceedings: Journal of Safety and Security at Sea in February, providing insights to the long and...more
In a 106-page Notice of Proposed Rulemaking issued Monday, January 13, 2014, the United States Coast Guard (USCG) has undertaken a wide-ranging overhaul of the standards for fire protection, detection and extinguishment...more
In the continuing regulatory response - even more than three years after the fact - to the DEEPWATER HORIZON disaster, the United States Coast Guard (USCG) has led off 2014 with proposed regulations that significantly change...more