In its bid to resume Gulf of Mexico drilling, BP is promising to implement even stricter safety measures than the feds are requiring.
In its bid to resume Gulf of Mexico drilling, BP is promising to implement even stricter safety measures than the feds are requiring.
The oil giant said Friday that it's learned lessons from last year's tragic Deepwater Horizon explosion, and maintains those new practices will promote greater safety and preparedness in deepwater drilling.
In a story Friday, The Times-Picayune reports that Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., the ranking member of the House Natural Resources Committee, asked Michael Bromwich, the director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Enforcement and Regulation, whether it would not make sense to apply the higher standards BP is voluntarily adopting to the industry as a whole:
Bromwich replied that while some of those higher standards might be included in new safety rules that his agency will adopt using a lengthier rule-making process, he would not want to act to impose new requirements before then.
"I certainly applaud what they are doing," Bromwich said of BP.
Markey asked Bromwich whether BP's enhanced safety commitment didn't indicate that what it was embarking on was both "technologically feasible and economically viable."
Bromwich agreed that it was technologically possible and for BP and the rest of the Big Five oil companies, economically doable.
Read more on the details of the new safety measures here.