BOEM employees work on preparing offshore lease sales during shutdown

US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management employees have continued to work on upcoming federal offshore oil and lease sales despite the partial government shutdown that has closed much of the Department of the Interior.

BOEM’s updated Fiscal 2019 Contingency Plan for a shutdown called for 124 excepted employees to be available to handle administrative services, emergency response, and support for the US Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement’s permitting operations. BOEM’s workforce normally totals 558.

Forty of the employees have been available to prepare US Outer Continental Shelf decision documents, including the associated programmatic environmental impact statement, and completing environmental assessments, and related works to process Atlantic geologic and geophysical permits, the plan said.

“If the lapse in appropriations extends past Jan. 15, additional personnel will be designated as exempt to complete work to publish Proposed Notice for Gulf of Mexico Sale 253 and Final Notice of Sale and Record of Decision for Gulf of Mexico Sale 252,” it continued. “These employees will be designated as exempt for only the amount of time needed to complete this work. They will be funded through carryover.”

CNN was the first to report the activity on Jan. 15. Responses a day later ranged from US House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Raul M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) and two other House Democrats’ strong criticism to National Ocean Industries Association Pres. Randall B. Luthi’s equally strong support for DOI’s bringing BOEM employees back to complete preparations for upcoming offshore oil and gas lease sales.

“This is an outrageous step,” said Grijalva, incoming Energy and Mineral Resources Subcommittee Chairman Alan S. Lowenthal (D-Calif.), and Betty McCollum, chair-designate of the House Appropriations Committee’s Interior, Environment, and Related Agency Subcommittee, in a Jan. 16 letter to Acting US Interior Sec. David Bernhardt.

Justifications ‘farcical’

They said that justifications in BOEM’s contingency plan—that the employees are needed to comply with the Trump administration’s energy strategy and that failure to hold the lease sales would adversely affect the US Treasury and have negative impacts on investments in the US Offshore Gulf of Mexico—“are farcical and make it clear that the administration cares only about the impacts on its favorite industry and not about workers, their families, and ordinary Americans.”

The three House Democrats urged Bernhardt to reverse the actions immediately “and prioritize health, safety, and the protection of natural resources over the needs of the oil and gas industry. If you refuse, we insist that you come to Capitol Hill this week for a detailed briefing providing the legal justification for what appears to be a violation of the Antideficiency Act.”

They also requested information on where funding for the recalls is coming from, how it is being spent, and what the consequences are of the expenditures during the shutdown.

Noting that the upcoming lease sales were approved and scheduled during the Obama administration, Luthi said that such sales customarily undergo rigorous environmental reviews, both during the planning process and again before each individual sale. “While much of the work for the upcoming March sale in the Gulf of Mexico has already been completed, there are still t’s to be crossed and i’s to be dotted to ensure the public and the industry are properly notified,” he said.

The offshore energy industry generates billions of dollars for the US and state treasuries, provides thousands of well-paying jobs in the US and bolsters our national energy security, NOIA’s president said. “It makes both economic and energy sense to continue work on this long-planned and approved sale,” he pointed out. “We encourage Interior to also take steps to keep future offshore wind sales on track, particularly since the recent sale off the coast of Massachusetts proved to be so successful.”

Contact Nick Snow at [email protected].