The United States Department of the Interior published the final well control rule on Aug. 22 from the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE). The rule clarifies blowout preventer (BOP) system regulations and...more
The Opportune 2023 Study has been conducted to independently calculate the OCS plugging and abandonment (P&A) liability, assess the risk such liability poses to the U.S. taxpayer, and perform a cost-benefit analysis of how...more
On June 29, 2023, the Department of Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) published a proposed rule that, if adopted, would substantially revise the financial assurance requirements applicable to offshore oil...more
The federal Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) directs decommissioning of facilities located in federal waters of the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) that are used in performance of oil and gas exploration...more
On October 16, 2020, the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (“BSEE”) and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (“BOEM”), both agencies of the U.S. Department of the Interior, published a joint notice of proposed...more
In 2014, we wrote about efforts by the U.S. Department of Interior’s Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) to require less traditional parties to fund the decommissioning of idle oil and gas wells and related...more
On May 2, the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) issued the 2019 Well Control Rule (Rule), a long-awaited, revised (and final) well control and blowout preventer rule governing Outer Continental Shelf (OCS)...more
The Department of Interior’s Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement is soliciting comments on whether and under what circumstances it should allow decommissioning-in-place of pipeline-related infrastructure in...more
The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) recently announced proposed revisions to its Oil and Gas and Sulfur Operations in the Outer Continental Shelf – Blowout Preventer Systems and Well Control Rule....more
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
On December 18, 2017, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit dismissed the U.S. government’s appeal regarding a Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (“BSEE”) Notification of Incident of Noncompliance...more
On Wednesday, September 27, the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit issued an important decision in United States vs. Moss, No. 16-30561 that limits the authority of the federal government to bring enforcement actions...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
On September 27, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit issued its long-awaited opinion in the case of U.S. v. Moss, et al. The Fifth Circuit affirmed the District Court’s ruling that the Outer Continental Shelf...more
In the wake of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon incident, which involved multiple contractors, the federal government revised its approach to offshore safety and environmental regulation. For the first time, the Bureau of Safety...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
On July 7, almost a year and a half after the proposed rules were published, the U.S. Department of the Interior’s (DOI) Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) and Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE)...more
On May 27, 2016, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (“BOEM”) and the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (“BSEE”) jointly released a Programmatic Environmental Assessment (“PEA”) for well stimulation treatment...more
At a time when the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement’s (“BSEE”) Well Control Rule has shifted focus away from its sister agency’s regulatory maneuvering, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (“BOEM”) is changing...more
On January 29, 2016, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (“BOEM”) and the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (“BSEE”), agencies within the federal Department of the Interior (“DOI”), agreed to put a temporary...more
On April 17, 2015, the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) published proposed amendments to regulations for offshore well operators in the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS). The proposed amendments address...more