Chapter Nine: "Develop options for guarding against, and mitigating the impact of, oil spills associated with offshore drilling." Investing in Safety, Investing in Response, Investing in the Gulf

¶Introduction

¶The President asked this Commission to "develop options for guarding against, and mitigating the impact of, oil spills associated with offshore drilling"¹¹ Exec. Order No. 13543, 75 Fed. Reg. 29,397 (May 21, 2010). in recognition of the compelling need to balance the nation's interest in offshore energy resources with protection of our rich marine and coastal environments. To that end, previous chapters of this report have detailed the complex web of decisions, actions, and circumstances that set the stage for the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster. Among the chief actors in that web was the government itself, which played a key role both in setting the policies that shaped offshore oil and gas activities in the Gulf over the course of many decades, and in overseeing responses to the spill once it began.

¶Ugly fallout from the spill, tarballs foul a beach near Venice, Louisiana. The report sets out a broad array of recommendations for action by the federal government to better manage and protect the nation's offshore energy resources. Two overarching and convergent goals: minimize the risk of another major spill along with its economic and environmental consequences—and be prepared when it happens.

¶< Win McNamee/Getty Images

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¶This chapter presents the Commission's recommendations for addressing the causes and consequences of the spill with a focus on the government's role (recommendations targeted to industry are presented in Chapter 8). The recommendations reflect the government's sweeping sovereign authority as both owner of the seabed and water column and as the regulator of activities, with the overriding responsibility to manage and protect the valuable resources of the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) on behalf of current and future generations of Americans. They are grouped in seven distinct areas:

A. Improving the Safety of Offshore Operations
B. Safeguarding the Environment
C. Strengthening Oil Spill Response, Planning, and Capacity
D. Advancing Well-Containment Capabilities
E. Overcoming the Impacts of the Deepwater Horizon Spill and Restoring the Gulf
F. Ensuring Financial Responsibility
G. Promoting Congressional Engagement to Ensure Responsible Offshore Drilling

¶The sections that follow summarize the context and rationale for each of the Commission's specific recommendations. Other chapters of this report, as well as staff working papers published by the Commission and available at www.oilspillcommission.gov,* provide additional detail and further support for the recommendations. Chapter 10 presents additional recommendations concerning the future of offshore drilling, including prospective drilling in the Arctic.

Improving the Safety of Offshore Operations

¶As detailed in Chapters 3 and 4, and in staff working papers, federal efforts to regulate the offshore oil and gas industry have suffered for years from cross-cutting purposes, pressure from political and industry interests, a deepening deficit of technical expertise, and severely inadequate resources available to the government agencies tasked with the leasing function and regulation. In the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the Department of the Interior has already taken a series of significant and important steps to improve regulatory oversight of offshore drilling. But given the deep-rooted problems that had existed at the Department's Minerals Management Service (MMS) before the spill occurred, and the near certainty that the oil and gas industry will seek to expand into ever more challenging environments in the years ahead, a more comprehensive overhaul of both leasing and the regulatory policies and institutions used to oversee offshore activities is required. The necessary overhaul, to be successful, must address three core issues: (1) reducing and managing risk more effectively using strategies that can keep pace with a technologically complex and rapidly evolving industry, particularly in high-risk and frontier areas; (2) assuring the independence and integrity of government institutions charged with protecting the public interest; and (3) securing the resources needed to provide a robust capability to execute the leasing function and adequate regulatory oversight.

A list of staff working papers can be found in Appendix F.

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