The Interior Department’s Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) has issued a final rule that is aimed at enhancing the safety of oil and gas rig workers in the federal Outer Continental Shelf (OCS).

The rules build on Safety and Environmental Management Systems’ (SEMS) regulations, which were published in the Federal Register in October 2010 and were required to be in place by November 2011. The initial BSEE regulations were in response to the blowout of the Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico and the resulting explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon rig in April 2010 (see Daily GPI, April 22, 2010).

The new, supplemental BSEE rule calls on operators to create procedures to establish “stop work” authority and empower all personnel who witness an activity that is creating imminent risk to stop work; requires companies to establish who has ultimate work authority on a rig for operational safety and decision-making at any given time; empowers all personnel to report to BSEE possible violations of safety or environmental regulations and requirements and threats of danger; and provides an environment that promotes participation by employees and management in order to eliminate or mitigate hazards.

Operators were required to have their initial SEMS program in place in November 2011. The latest SEMS rule, which is referred to as SEMS II, takes effect on June 4, and operators are required to comply with the provisions of the rule on or before June 4, 2014, according to the final rule [BSEE-2-012-0011].

The revisions “grow out of and strengthen the existing SEMS framework,” the BSEE action said. “This rulemaking will further support BSEE’s efforts to reduce the occurrence of accidents, injuries and spills during oil and gas activities on the Outer Continental Shelf,” the rule said.

“The Deepwater Horizon explosion and resulting oil spill highlighted potential faults in the existing OCS safety culture, convincing MMS (Minerals Management Service, the forerunner of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement) of the need to require all operators to implement a comprehensive SEMS. On Oct. 15, 2010, BOEMRE…published in the Federal Register the final rule.”

In a farewell web chat Wednesday, outgoing Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said the department may be facing a rough road ahead financially. The budget “sequester is harsh and unnecessary and should never have happened,” he said. Salazar said Interior’s 76,000 employees will feel the effects of the sequester. In addition to that, he said that $278 million in cuts will be imposed on Interior in the continuing resolution.

“We don’t have the budget that we need to carry out our mission.” The combined impact of the sequester and the cuts in the continuing resolution have “rolled the Interior budget to where it was 10 years ago. That’s not good.”

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