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Offshore Drilling Regulation Two Years After the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill

E&P Magazine

In this article, Adam Feinberg discusses the new government regulations on offshore drilling put in place since the April 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico (GoM). Among other things, the government imposed two deepwater drilling moratoria, created new safety rules governing offshore drilling activities, adopted new requirements for oil spill response and containment, and substantially restructured the federal agencies that oversee offshore drilling by creating the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement (BOEMRE) from the former Minerals Management Service in 2010. It then split BOEMRE into the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) and the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) in 2011. These actions have had a profound impact on offshore drilling in the US. Now that two years have passed since the spill, it is worth taking stock of the current state of offshore drilling regulation.