2017

“The withdrawal of this proposed rule by the U.S. Coast Guard is long overdue. After sitting on the shelf for nearly 20 years, the provisions contained in the proposed rule have long ago been rendered obsolete by an industry that prides itself on embracing technological advances.

Today’s Interior announcement is gratifying in that industry concerns have been heard and the resulting regulation encourages energy development while still remaining vigilant about protecting the environment from unnecessary methane emissions.

The International Association of Drilling Contractors (IADC) recently donated a kiosk loaded with interactive educational information about the upstream oil and gas industry to the Ocean Star Offshore Drilling Rig Museum and Education Center in Galveston, Texas.

The U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources passed three bills that will eliminate delays in the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) onshore permitting process. IADC supports today’s passage of H.R. 6087: Removing Barriers to Energy Independence Act; H.R 6088: Streamlining Permitting Efficiencies in Energy Development Act and H.R. 6107: Ending Duplicative Permitting Act.

ADC honored 30 Senators and Members of Congress with the first IADC Legislator Awards, which recognized support for the drilling contractor industry in the 115th Congress.

“As the owners and operators of drilling rigs and blowout preventers, IADC members have been acutely impacted by some provisions of the rule. Far from advocating scrapping the entire well control rule or other rules issued after Macondo, as some opponents of today’s proposal have argued, IADC has asked that the well control rule’s requirements be appropriately refined to increase their effectiveness while removing those provisions that add unnecessary costs without increasing safety, and it sounds like this is exactly what BSEE has done through its surgical approach in its revision of the rule."