President Donald Trump's administration is considering ending a variety of regulations on offshore oil drilling from his predecessor's era, The Wall Street Journal reports.
Repealing the rules put in place after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill could save energy companies almost $1 billion in the next decade, according to a report from the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement. Most of these rules are safety regulations that industry officials argue are too broad.
"Based on BSEE experience during the implementation of the original [well control rule], BSEE has concluded that the term 'safe' creates ambiguity in that it could be read to suggest that additional unspecified standards, beyond those expressly stated, may be imposed in the approval of proposed drilling margins," reads a preamble to the BSEE's proposal, which was sent to the White House on Dec. 8, according to the Journal.
In mid-December, Trump touted his efforts to reduce government regulation, telling reporters at a White House ceremony "we beat our goal by a lot," according to The Hill.
"Instead of adding costs as so many others have done … for the first time in decades, we achieved regulatory savings. Hasn't happened in many decades. We blew our target out of the water."
"Instead of eliminating two old regulations for every one new regulation, we have eliminated 22; that's a big difference," Trump said. "We aimed for 2 for 1 and in 2017 we hit 22 for 1, and by the way, those regulations that are in place do the job better than all the other regulations and they allow us to build and create jobs and do what we have to do."
© 2024 Newsmax. All rights reserved.