TPT March 2018

G LOBA L MARKE T P L AC E

Fracking regulations on hold since the Obama era are to be scrapped On the same day on which the US Interior Department announced the rescission of accident-prevention regulations imposed after the deadly Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill (See “US Safety Rules”, above), government officials said that prospective restrictions on fracking and other oil- and gas-drilling practices on government lands would also be rescinded. The deferred fracking regulations, developed under President Barack Obama but blocked by a federal judge from becoming law, would have applied mainly in the American West, where most federal lands are located. Companies would have been required to disclose the chemicals used in fracking, which pumps pressurised water underground to break open hydrocarbon deposits. The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, the office of the Interior Department that monitors offshore oil

spill to regulate offshore oil and gas drilling. The action will, the agency asserted, reduce “unnecessary burdens” on the industry and save $228mn over ten years. The proposed changes are candidly presented as intended to “fortify the administration’s objective of facilitating energy dominance” by the US. This is to be achieved through increased domestic oil and gas production by oil and gas companies no longer constrained by restrictions instituted by President Donald Trump’s predecessor. The American Petroleum Institute (API) has long opposed the safety regulations, calling them “flawed and costly” and projecting a reduction (by $4bn a year) of capital investment in the Gulf and the loss of 50,000 industry jobs. The National Ocean Industries Association (NOIA), which represents domestic offshore energy firms, also welcomed the Interior Department news. › “The proposed revisions . . . mark an integral step in the regulatory reform promised by President Trump,” NOIA head Randall Luthi said (29 December).

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MARCH 2018