Obama administration makes unrealistic demands on offshore wells

Official portrait of Secretary of the Interior...Image via Wikipedia
Houston Chronicle:

Obama administration officials stressed Thursday that energy companies must certify, under penalty of law, they can quickly contain blown-out offshore wells before regulators will approve deep-water drilling permits.

That could translate to a longer delay in resuming deep-water drilling, even though the government lifted its moratorium on those projects last week.

An industry-led effort to develop a subsea containment system for quickly trapping oil at blown-out wells won't be ready until next year, at the earliest. And regulators haven't yet decided logistically how they can mandate such enforceable assurances about containment capability.

Since the ban was lifted, no deep-water applications have been submitted to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement. Chevron Corp. has said it plans on submitting a test case proposal within the next two weeks.

The containment issue was discussed during a closed-door meeting with Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, Bureau Director Michael Bromwich and more than a dozen oil and gas industry officials. Participants included representatives from trade groups such as the American Petroleum Institute, drilling contractors such as Diamond Offshore, the major oil companies and independent producer Anadarko Petroleum Corp.

...
This is about as ridiculous as the SEC requiring that investors in securities will not lose money for more than a day. A more realistic standard would be that they have a plan in place to deal with the inherent risk in drilling offshore wells. They can then look at the plan and decide whether it is reasonable. What the Obama administration is proposing "under penalty of law" is that companies make commitments that no reasonable person would ever make.

It is not as though the drillers are indifferent to the consequences of well blowouts. Those events cost them far more than they cost the government. It is already in their interest to avoid disaster.

This is just another example of how unsuitable Ken Salazar is for his job. He should be fired.
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