Company responsible for latest Gulf blowout complains about overregulation

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http://grist.org/news/company-responsible-for-latest-gulf-blowout-complains-about-overregulation/

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The Hercules rig ablaze before the flames were snuffed out


You’ll never guess who spent the past several years arguing that the Obama administration should back off from its regulatory oversight of oil and gas drillers.

That would be James Noe, executive vice president of Hercules Offshore, Inc., which was operating a gas-drilling rig when it blew out and caught fire off the coast of Louisiana on Tuesday. It was just luck that the rig stopped burning on Thursday — sand and sediment plugged up the well hole, blocking the flow of leaking natural gas that had fueled the blaze.

From Fuel Fix:

[Noe] also is executive director of the Shallow Water Energy Security Coalition, an advocacy group that just three months ago issued a statement that suggested regulators were being too tough on the industry. The group is comprised of exploration and development companies, drilling contractors and service companies.

“Ramping up the issuance of incidents of non-compliance for often trivial infractions is no substitute for technically substantive oversight – and threatens to take our eye off the ball on what is really important: what’s going on at the drill floor and in the well,” the group said in April.