Oil companies push for status quo on environmental regulations for deep-water drilling

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http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-oil-nepa-20100618,0,74784.story


Oil companies push for status quo on environmental regulations for deep-water drilling rigs
The pleas come as the White House Council on Environmental Quality is reviewing whether the federal drilling watchdog has appropriately followed the National Environmental Policy Act.


Reporting from Washington —
Oil and gas companies have told the Obama administration that environmental regulations for deep-water drilling rigs do not immediately need to be toughened because the Deepwater Horizon explosion was an unforeseeable event, not a failure of federal oversight, according to documents filed last week with the White House.

The industry's chief lobbying arm, the American Petroleum Institute, submitted written comments to the White House Council on Environmental Quality. The council is reviewing whether the federal Minerals Management Service — the now-splintered and much criticized agency charged with regulating oil drilling — has appropriately conducted reviews mandated by the National Environmental Policy Act, known as NEPA.

"One accident does not mean that the practice and procedures of MMS are inadequate to implement NEPA's requirements, especially when the cause of the accident has yet to be determined," wrote the lobbying group, which represents 400 oil and gas companies, including BP.

Anadarko Petroleum, which owns a quarter share of the leaking BP well, wrote in a separate filing that it believes the government's enforcement of environmental laws has not "in any way played a role" in the Gulf of Mexico spill.


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