SOURCE: Center for American Progress
CAP Director of Ocean Policy testifies before the House Committee on Natural Resources, Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources. Read the entire testimony (CAP Action)
Chairman Lamborn, Ranking Member Holt, and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to provide testimony on this critical topic. My name is Michael Conathan and I am the Director of Ocean Policy at the Center for American Progress Action Fund. CAP Action’s ocean program focuses on supporting science-based policies and finding solutions that balance the socioeconomic and environmental needs of Americans and our ocean and coastal space.
We cannot start a conversation about the budgets and legislative proposals for the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, or BOEM, and Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, or BSEE, without acknowledging that these two agencies were formed in the aftermath of the tragic 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill that claimed the lives of 11 men, and over the course of three months spewed nearly 5 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.
This disaster changed the conversation about offshore oil and gas production and must inform the policies we create to manage future offshore drilling operations. As we exhaust oil and gas resources that are easier to access, be they in shallow water or on land, we will by necessity have to turn to operations that require cutting-edge technology and a greater investment of resources. In so doing, we must ensure the complications and dangers inherent in such activities are addressed and minimized.
CAP Director of Ocean Policy testifies before the House Committee on Natural Resources, Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources. Read the entire testimony (CAP Action)