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WALTER CRUIKSHANK wind replaced by lobbyist
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POLITICO E AND E
Internal emails reveal Interior’s Empire Wind deliberations
:{:{By Ian M. Stevenson, Benjamin Storrow | 08/28/2025}:
The messages show the Trump administration included offshore wind foes in the push to cancel permitted projects.
Turbines operate off the coast of Block Island, Rhode Island. Julia Nikhinson/AP
When NOAA scrutinized a wind project off the coast of New York this spring, it turned to a new hire who had spent years criticizing offshore wind.
Annie Hawkins — who helmed a fishing industry group opposed to coastal wind projects before joining NOAA as its top lawyer — was one of several senior officials included in a planning email in the days leading up to an Interior Department order that halted construction on Empire Wind, according to emails obtained by POLITICO’s E&E News.
The emails — obtained in a Freedom of Information Act request — provide a glimpse into President Donald Trump’s sustained attack on the wind industry. They show that administration officials moved quickly in April to assemble findings that would later be cited by Interior Secretary Doug Burgum as the rationale for halting construction of the 54-turbine project.
It is unclear what role Hawkins played in deliberations over the Empire Wind stoppage, which was later reversed. The documents indicate she was included on one email and later removed. NOAA, which is part of the Commerce Department, declined to comment. Interior and its Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, which oversees offshore wind, did not respond to requests for comment. Hawkins referred questions to NOAA.
But Hawkins’ presence on the email chain is likely to raise questions among offshore wind supporters.
The emails also show that senior officials at Interior received detailed recommendations from Green Oceans, a Rhode Island group opposed to offshore wind, for how to cancel leases granted to offshore wind developers. Interior issued a stop work order last week to Revolution Wind, a project off Connecticut and Rhode Island.
The administration’s deliberations around Empire Wind came shortly after the project developer, Equinor, began offshore construction and amid a public campaign from congressional Republicans and offshore wind opponents to have the project stopped.
Matthew Giacona, who was then deputy director at BOEM, thanked officials at NOAA in an email dated April 11 for their “engagement this week” and invited them to assist in Burgum’s review of offshore wind leases and permits. On the first day of his second term in January, Trump halted all new wind permits and ordered a review of existing leases.
If NOAA “has any reports or analyses that can be provided to inform the Secretary’s comprehensive assessment, these inputs would be extremely helpful as we ensure the Secretary has full information available as he continues his review,” Giacona wrote in the April 11 message.
Erik Noble, NOAA’s principal deputy assistant secretary for oceans and atmosphere, replied: “Message received. We will be in touch.”
Included on Noble’s email were officials such as Hawkins, Interior policy adviser Brittany Kelm, Interior Deputy Solicitor Damon Hagan, Interior Associate Solicitor Karen Hawbecker and BOEM chief of staff Jennafer Foreman. Hawkins was later removed from the email chain, according to the documents.
BOEM officials appear to have begun drafting the stop work order before they received the report from NOAA. Bureau officials shared a draft of an order to Equinor to shut down construction on Empire Wind on the morning of April 15.
In a separate reply 20 minutes before noon on April 15, Noble replied to Hawbecker, Hagan, Kelm and other administration officials with a “technical screening analysis” of the Empire Wind project.
Hawbecker promptly forwarded the report to BOEM’s then-acting Director Walter Cruickshank and James Anderson, BOEM’s associate director of the Office of Budget & Administration.
“FYI — here’s NOAA’s document,” Hawbecker wrote. “I’m assessing it now.”
Less than three hours later, Cruickshank sent an email with a draft of the order to two BOEM officials. “This is close hold until it’s sent. No word yet on when that will be, as the Secretary’s Order needs to come first,” he wrote.
‘Flawed science’
That NOAA report became the administration’s justification for taking the rare step to halt construction. In an email April 17, Anderson called the report “the basis of” another memo from Burgum ordering the construction halt. Burgum himself posted on social media that NOAA scientists had “revealed” the project’s approval was “built on bad & flawed science.”
But Interior has not released the contents of the report. In response to a prior records request from E&E News, the department blacked out all 27 pages of its findings.
Interior’s deliberations came as offshore wind opponents called for the Trump administration to stop Empire Wind.
Rep. Chris Smith, a New Jersey Republican, sent Burgum a letter in late March calling on Interior to halt the project. The leader of a fishing group penned an opinion piece in the New York Poston April 10 warning of ecological destruction if the Trump administration allowed Empire Wind to move forward.
Steve Milloy, a conservative activist who questions climate science, followed with an opinion piece in the Daily Caller saying Interior needed to stop construction of offshore wind projects underway to satisfy the intent of Trump’s Day 1 executive order.
Trump lifted the work stoppage in May after claiming to strike a deal with New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, to permit two pipelines in the state. Hochul rejected that claim, but said she was open to permitting pipelines that complied with state law.
The order nevertheless represented a massive setback for Equinor, which has estimated it cost the company more than $200 million. It also raised issues for other offshore wind developers like Ørsted, which suddenly found itself unable to sell a share of a nearby project under construction at an attractive price.
Equinor declined to comment on the emails.
Matt Walker, a regional campaign manager at the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group, called the administration’s stop-work orders “reckless, rushed and entirely unjustified.”
“According to email records, the administration apparently needed no more than a few hours to assess information about the Empire Wind project before putting a stop-work order in place,” he said by email.
Hawkins was one of the leading critics of offshore wind before joining NOAA, regularly criticizing the industry as the head of the Responsible Offshore Development Association.
RODA, as the group is commonly known, repeatedly criticized the Biden administration’s for moving too quickly to permit offshore wind projects. In 2020, before Biden took office, the group called for a five-year moratorium on new offshore wind leasing. It later filed an unsuccessful legal challenge to Vineyard Wind, a 62-turbine development being built off the coast of Massachusetts.
Hawkins previously worked as an attorney representing the Fisheries Survival Fund, an industry group for the scallop industry that unsuccessfully challenged Empire Wind’s lease in court.
‘We’ll talk soon’
But Hawkins has not always been critical of Empire Wind. In 2021, she hailed negotiations between Equinor and fishermen over Empire Wind’s turbine placement as a model for collaboration between the fishing and wind industries.
“Is it a solution to all the problems, and if we do this there are no impacts? Absolutely not. Is it a potentially good, effective way to minimize some of the impacts? Yes,” Hawkins told E&E News at the time. “It does highlight that there are things we can do working together to minimize the impacts.”
The records also show how one anti-wind nonprofit, Green Oceans, shared detailed recommendations with Interior for how to revoke offshore wind leases and scored a meeting with a senior Interior official in May.
In emails to Burgum and acting Assistant Secretary for Lands and Minerals Management Adam Suess, the organization shared a 68-page report called “Cancelling Offshore Wind Leases.”
The report includes detailed analyses of relevant laws and regulations, pointing out potential law violations for wind projects off the coasts of Massachusetts and Rhode Island. It was written by Maureen Koetz, president of Planet A* Strategies, who previously worked at the Nuclear Energy Institute and as aide to former Sen. Pete Domenici, a New Mexico Republican.
One of the potential issues the report flagged was national security.
BOEM and the Department of Defense “still do not have an adequate analysis or evaluation of the cumulative impacts to national security” of the projects in New England, the report stated.
The Green Oceans group sent the report to Suess on May 2 — two weeks after the Empire Wind stop-work order — along with a reminder about a meeting scheduled the following week.
“I appreciate it,” Suess wrote back to the group. “We’ll talk soon.”
Last week, BOEM halted work on Revolution Wind, a 65-turbine project off of Rhode Island that is 80 percent completed. BOEM said in a letter to Ørsted that the stoppage was needed to address “national security interests of the United States.”
Green Oceans, which was founded in 2023 by a group of property owners, has emerged as one of the leading offshore wind opponents in New England.
Elizabeth Knight, a co-founder of Green Oceans, could not be reached for comment.
---
DOI-2025-008104 Rel1 Redacted | DocumentCloud
From: Cruickshank, WalterTo: N; Stromberg, Jessica A.Cc: Foreman, Jennafer LSubject: Fw: [EXTERNAL] Request for Federal Review of Empire Wind CZMA Consistency in Light of DeveloperNoncomplianceDate: Monday, June 2, 2025 9:39:55 AMAttachments: NOAA - Equinor Non-compliance letter.pdfFrom: Tom Dameron <capttomd@gmail.com>Sent: Monday, June 2, 2025 8:00 AMTo: jeffrey.payne@noaa.gov <jeffrey.payne@noaa.gov>Cc: nicole.leboeuf@noaa.gov <nicole.leboeuf@noaa.gov>; LaTourette, Shawn<shawn.latourette@dep.nj.gov>; Cruickshank, Walter <Walter.Cruickshank@boem.gov>; ThomasDameron <tdameron@surfsidefoods.com>Subject: [EXTERNAL] Request for Federal Review of Empire Wind CZMA Consistency in Light ofDeveloper Noncompliance
Adam G. SuessActing Assistant SecretaryLand & Minerals ManagementU.S. Department of the Interior
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matthew Giacona | Bureau of Ocean Energy Management
Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (.gov)
https://www.boem.gov › about-boem › boem-leadership
Matt Giacona is currently serving as the Acting Director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. He brings extensive experience in energy policy and ...Read more
Giacona, Matthew from www.boem.gov
Matt Giacona Lobbied For Offshore Oil Drillers. Now He ...
Public Domain | Substack
https://www.publicdomain.media › matt-giacona-offsho...
Jun 27, 2025 — As BOEM's new principal deputy director, former lobbyist Matt Giacona is shaping Gulf of Mexico oil policy and facilitating industry access.Read more
Giacona, Matthew from www.publicdomain.media
Matt Giacona - National Ocean Industries Association
LegiStorm
https://www.legistorm.com › Matthew_Nicholas_Giacona
See more about Matt Giacona including contact information, congressional salary, employment history, education, lobbying records and other biographical ...
Giacona, Matthew from www.legistorm.com
RM Letter to DOI OIG re Giacona Ethics Violations
House.gov
https://democrats-naturalresources.house.gov › doc
Oct 8, 2025 — Matthew Giacona, Acting Director of the. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), has violated federal ethics rules by participating in.Read more
5 pages
BOEM Leadership | Bureau of Ocean Energy Management
Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (.gov)
https://www.boem.gov › about-boem › boem-leadership
Matt Giacona is currently serving as the Acting Director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. He brings extensive experience in energy policy and ...Read more
House Dems request ethics probe of acting BOEM director
E&E News by POLITICO
https://www.eenews.net › Articles
Oct 10, 2025 — They accused Matthew Giacona of improperly communicating with former clients. Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) at a press conference on Capitol.Read more
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Matthew Giacona | Bureau of Ocean Energy Management
Matthew Giacona | Bureau of Ocean Energy Management
Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM)
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Matthew Giacona - American Rheinmetall Vehicles, Director of ...
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Matt Giacona Lobbied For Offshore Oil Drillers. Now He Runs ...
Matt Giacona Lobbied For Offshore Oil Drillers. Now He Runs ...
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Yup new BOEM acting director.. since June 2025. Replaced ...
Yup new BOEM acting director.. since June 2025. Replaced ...
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NOIA Adds Matt Giacona as Vice President, Government Affairs
noia.org
https://www.noia.org › noia-adds-matt-giacona-as-vice-...
Jan 3, 2023 — National Ocean Industries Association President Erik Milito is pleased to announce the hiring of Matt Giacona as Vice President, Government Affairs.Read more
August 26, 2025 Mr. Matthew Giacona Acting Director ...
Earthjustice
https://earthjustice.org › document › congression...
Aug 26, 2025 — Matthew Giacona. Acting Director. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. 1849 C Street, N.W.. Washington, D.C. 20240. Dear Acting Director Giacona,.Read more
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Major wind project dependent on Biden admin waiving taxpayer safeguard: internal docs | Fox News
Major wind project dependent on Biden admin waiving taxpayer safeguard: internal docs
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Major wind project was dependent on Biden admin waiving taxpayer safeguard: internal docs
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Published January 15, 2024 4:00am EST | Updated January 15, 2024 4:29am EST
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EXCLUSIVE: A Massachusetts wind project, which recently became the first utility-scale offshore wind project to deliver electricity to the grid, wouldn't have been financially viable if the Biden administration hadn't intervened, according to internal documents reviewed by Fox News Digital.
Federal officials with the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) acknowledged in the unearthed communications shared with Fox News Digital that granting a waiver on development fees designed to safeguard taxpayers was "critical" for the 800-megawatt Vineyard Wind project. BOEM ultimately waived the financial assurance for decommissioning costs fee for the project in June 2021.
"The more we dig into the details of the Vineyard Wind project the more concerning it becomes. The Biden administration brags that this is the first utility-scale offshore wind project. But clearly, without BOEM contorting the approval process and waiving requirements meant to protect taxpayers, Vineyard is unlikely to ever have gotten off the ground," Michael Chamberlain, the director of watchdog group Protect the Public's Trust (PPT), which obtained the documents, told Fox News Digital.
"Both BOEM and the developer have admitted as much. This situation does not bode well," Chamberlain continued. "If government has to bend the rules to make these projects feasible, it's just a matter of time before the 'clean energy transition' is dead in the water. The only questions may be how many taxpayer resources are put at risk and how much of the American public’s trust is squandered before it happens."
GIANT OFFSHORE WIND PROJECT AXED IN BLOW TO BIDEN'S GREEN GOALS
Vineyard Wind of New Bedford, the construction/layover work happening at the New Bedford Marine Terminal. A view of stacked GE Haliade- X turbine blades.
Wind turbine blades are stacked at the New Bedford Marine Terminal in Massachusetts on June 14, 2023. The blades are for the Vineyard Wind project. (David L. Ryan/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)
On June 15, 2021, BOEM Office of Renewable Energy Programs Chief James Bennett sent a letter to Vineyard Wind's developer, informing the firm that the agency had approved a March 2021 request to waive the fee. Under the action, Vineyard Wind isn't required to pay the development fee until 15 years after the project enters operations under its 20-year power purchase agreements.
Vineyard Wind first submitted the request in December 2017, but the Trump administration rejected it, forcing the developer to resubmit it in March 2021. Federal statute mandates that developers pay the fee prior to construction on their lease, a potentially hefty fee designed to guarantee federal property is returned to its original state after a lessee departs its lease.
DC GREENLIGHTS AGGRESSIVE ELECTRIC VEHICLE MANDATE DESPITE CRITICS SOUNDING ALARM ON HIGH CONSUMER COSTS
In addition, Meredith Lilley, an energy program specialist at BOEM's Office of Renewable Energy Programs, acknowledged in an internal email also on June 15, 2021, that waiving the fee by August 2021 was vital to ensure Vineyard Wind could maintain financial viability. The move notably came one month before BOEM approved the project's construction and operations plan.
"Issuing a decision to Vineyard Wind on this request is critical to enabling them to carry on with the Vineyard Wind 1 Project because it is a key determinant of the project’s value, which Vineyard Wind needs to know now in order to secure financing and achieve financial close in early August," Lilley wrote in the email to other federal officials involved in internal deliberations.
Biden and wind projects
President Biden points to a wind turbine size comparison chart during a meeting about the Federal-State Offshore Wind Implementation Partnership on June 23, 2022. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
And according to Bennett, BOEM waived the fee because the project included risk reduction factors, including insurance policies to cover damages, use of proven wind turbine technology, and the use of power purchase agreements "with guaranteed electricity sales prices that, coupled with the consistent supply of wind energy, ensure a predictable income over the life of the project."
The letter also stated that the "regulatory departure" would reduce Vineyard Wind's financial assurance burden, enabling the developer to invest freed-up capital in construction and enabling the project to enter operations sooner. In addition, it explained the fee was waived also because it "promotes the production and transmission of energy from a source other than oil and gas."
TOP OFFICIALS WARNED BIDEN ADMIN ABOUT DANGERS WIND ENERGY PROJECTS POSE TO FISHING INDUSTRY, LETTER SHOWS
"In 2021, per its regulatory authority, BOEM approved Vineyard Wind 1’s request to defer providing the full amount of its decommissioning financial assurance until year 15 of actual operations under its 20-year Power Purchase Agreement for the Vineyard Wind 1 offshore wind energy project offshore Massachusetts," a BOEM spokesperson told Fox News Digital in a statement.
"BOEM deferred this requirement for Vineyard Wind 1 with the condition that such financial assurance would be provided in full during a time when the project risk is low — that is, during the time when the offshore wind lessee has guaranteed financial support through an assured price for the electricity generated by the project," the spokesperson added.
President Biden delivers remarks at the 2022 White House Tribal Nations Summit at the Department of the Interior on Nov. 30.
President Biden delivers remarks at the White House Tribal Nations Summit alongside Interior Secretary Deb Haaland. The pair have made approving and permitting offshore wind a priority as part of the administration's climate agenda. (Pete Marovich/Getty Images)
The revelation comes days after Vineyard Wind's developers, lawmakers and environmental groups celebrated the project beginning to send electricity to the grid. The milestone was achieved after one wind turbine entered operations at the offshore site which will eventually host 62 turbines.
After the turbine began producing electricity on Jan. 2, the Sierra Club said the project "will aid tremendously in reducing dangerous fossil fuel air pollution" and fellow eco group the Conservation Law Foundation added that "New England’s transition away from polluting fossil fuels and towards clean, renewable energy is underway in earnest."
BIDEN ADMIN MAKES STUNNING ADMISSION ON CLIMATE AGENDA IN LEAKED INTERNAL MEMO
"They've made it very, very clear that they will approve these projects really regardless of anything," Meghan Lapp, the fisheries liaison for Rhode Island-based fishing company Seafreeze, told Fox News Digital in an interview.
"They don't care about the impacts to fishing communities," she added. "They don't care about the impacts to coastal communities. They don't care about the impacts to marine mammals. Even though there's a lot of regulation on all of these other things and all of those other spheres, offshore wind gets a pass."
Wind turbines
Wind turbine blades for the Vineyard Wind project are stacked on racks on July 11, 2023, in New Bedford, Massachusetts. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa, File)
Lapp's company Seafreeze is spearheading a lawsuit against Vineyard Wind over the project's impacts on the fishing industry, the environment and coastal communities. Lapp expressed concern that, if the case leads to a court order to remove the project's turbines, there will be no funds for that removal operation given BOEM's waiver.
"If we win, we want those turbines gone. We want them taken out," she said. "The entire time, throughout the regulatory process for all of these wind farms, the federal government keeps saying, 'Don't worry, there are decommissioning funds.' Well, now come to find out there are no decommissioning funds for Vineyard Wind. If we win the case, who's going to take them out? And that's a big, big problem."
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Vineyard Wind — which is a joint venture between Danish energy developer Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners and New England utility services company Avangrid — was first proposed years ago, but was fast-tracked once President Biden entered office. In May 2021, the Department of the Interior (DOI) formally approved the project, marking the first utility-scale offshore wind farm to receive federal approval.
Then, in July 2021, BOEM approved Vineyard Wind's construction and operations plan and, four months later, DOI Secretary Deb Haaland joined then-Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker and other officials for the commemorative groundbreaking of the project in Barnstable, Massachusetts.
Thomas Catenacci is a politics writer for Fox News Digital.
Fox News First
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one of the few cases of straight up corruption at fed level pre trump? --? BP oil spill?
Bernhardt was DOI lawyer in charge (vs IG?)
In another example, according to “a report by the Interior Department’s inspector general,” employees in the Department of the Interior’s Minerals Management Service (MMS) “‘frequently consumed alcohol at industry functions, had used cocaine and marijuana, and had sexual relations with oil and gas company representatives,'” while allowing oil companies to “avoid paying royalties for offshore-drilling rights,” at a cost to taxpayers of “as much as $10.5 billion over about 25 years.”
From 2002 to 2006, according to “a report by the Interior Department’s inspector general,” MMS employees “‘frequently consumed alcohol at industry functions, had used cocaine and marijuana, and had sexual relations with oil and gas company representatives.'”Inspector GeneralEarl Devaney said MMS made “mistakes” allowing oil companies to “avoid paying royalties for offshore-drilling rights,” which would “cost taxpayers as much as $10.5 billion over about 25 years.”
Stephen Power, “[Federal Oil Officials Accused In Sex and Drugs Scandal,” Wall Street Journal, 09/11/08]
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The **Bureau of Ocean Energy Management** (BOEM) is an agency within theUnited States Department of the Interior, established in 2010 by Secretarial Order.[1]
The Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA) states: "...the outer Continental Shelf is a vital national resource reserve held by the Federal Government for the public, which should be made available for expeditious and orderly development, subject to environmental safeguards, in a manner which is consistent with the maintainence [sic] of competition and other national needs."[attribution ^needed]
BOEM and its sister agency, the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement are the agencies to which this responsibility is delegated. They exercise the oil, gas, and renewable energy-related management functions formerly under the purview of the Minerals Management Service (MMS). Specifically, BOEM activities involve resource evaluation, planning, and leasing.[1]
Contents
[hide]
Directors
The agency's first director, serving from June 2010 to May 2014, was Tommy Beaudreau.[2] The second director was Abigail Ross Hopper.[3] Currently, the deputy director Walter Cruickshank serves as the acting director.[4]
==
717
BOEM Leadership
BOEM is led by a Director appointed by the Secretary of the Interior. The Director is supported by senior executives who manage national programs, policy and budget in the Bureau's Washington, D.C. Headquarters. Each of the Bureau's three Regions (Alaska, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Pacific) has a Regional Director responsible for management and program implementation.
Acting Director
Dr. Walter Cruickshank
Deputy Director Walter Cruickshank
PROGRAM CHIEFS
Budget & Program Coordination
James Anderson
Jim Anderson serves as the Chief of the Office of Budget and Program Coordination (OBPC) which is responsible for managing the budget planning and execution processes, as well as administrative services for BOEM. Mr. Anderson has been the Budget Officer for BOEM and its legacy organizations since 2004. Prior to joining BOEM Mr Anderson held positions in the Office of Management and Budget, the Bureau of Reclamation, and the National Park Service. Mr. Anderson completed his undergraduate degree at Northeastern University in Boston and obtained a graduate degree at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia
Renewable Energy
James Bennett
Jim Bennett is the Chief of the Office of Renewable Energy Programs in the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), US Department of the Interior. Jim has over 35 years of experience in the environmental and energy arenas serving in a variety of capacities in the Department and other Federal agencies. Prior to becoming the program manager for renewables, Jim led the Division of Environmental Assessment, overseeing BOEM’s compliance with the NEPA and other environmental laws focusing on Federal OCS programs, including oil and gas, sand and gravel, and renewable energy. He is a graduate of the Department's Manager Development Program and has earned two Master’s degrees -- one in Environmental Planning and the other in Computer Systems Management. His experience encompasses events such as the Exxon Valdez and the Deepwater Horizon oil spills, the Cape Wind energy project, and offshore renewable energy activities particularly in the Atlantic.
Office of Congressional Affairs
Lee Tilton Office of Public Affairs
Connie Gillette
Budget & Program Chief James Anderson Renewable Energy Chief James Bennett Lee Tilton Connie Gillette
Strategic Resources
Renee Orr Policy, Regulation, & Analysis
Deanna Meyer-Pietruszka
Environmental Program
William Brown 2013
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Yancey_Brown
William Yancey Brown is the Chief Environmental Officer of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management in the Department of the Interior, where he oversees science and regulation for protection of the environment in energy and non-energy minerals development on the Outer Continental Shelf of the United States. He is a graduate of the Escola Americana do Recife (High School), University of Virginia (BA Biology, with highest distinction), Johns Hopkins University (MAT), University of Hawaii (PhD, Zoology), and Harvard Law School (JD). He was born in Artesia, California.
Dr. Brown's formerly served as nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution; Science Advisor to Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt; President & CEO of the Woods Hole Research Center in Massachusetts; President & CEO of the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia; President & CEO of the Bishop Museum in Hawaii; Vice President of the National Audubon Society; Vice President of Waste Management, Inc.; Senior Scientist and Acting Executive Director of the Environmental Defense Fund;Executive Secretary of the U.S. Endangered Species Scientific Authority; and Assistant Professor, Mount Holyoke College.
Orr Policy, Regulation, & Analysis Chief Deanna Meyers-Pietruska Chief Environmental Officer Bill Brown
Regional Directors
Alaska
Dr. James Kendall Gulf of Mexico
Mike Celata Pacific
==
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/10/AR2008091001829.html
==
http://www.denverpost.com/2008/09/10/sex-drugs-alleged-in-oil-deals/
WASHINGTON — Federal workers in Lakewood who oversee offshore oil and gas drilling had sex and used drugs with energy company employees, provided information to industry favorites, and accepted thousands of dollars in gifts while handling contracts worth billions of dollars, investigators said Wednesday.
Employees at the Minerals Management Service, including the former head of the Lakewood division, repeatedly and flagrantly violated ethics rules over a four-year period, the Interior Department’s inspector general said in three reports.
Investigators discovered “a culture of substance abuse and promiscuity,” in one section of the Lakewood office, Interior Inspector General Earl E. Devaney wrote in a letter to Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne.
In the Royalty in Kind division, “between 2002 and 2006, nearly one-third of the staff socialized with, and received a wide array of gifts and gratuities from, oil and gas companies,” with whom those workers were conducting business, one report said.
Gifts included ski and golf trips, tickets to sporting events, a jaunt to a party in New Orleans, dinners, drinks and a paintball outing.
Devaney said investigators found “a pervasive culture of exclusivity, exempt from the rules that govern all other employees of the federal government.”
The employees also used marijuana and cocaine with energy company workers, the report said.
Other employee transgressions detailed in the report included helping oil-company workers fix problems with their contracts (at a cost to the federal government of an estimated $4.4 million), providing information about how bids would be judged, and working part time in jobs that conflicted with their government work.
The Minerals Management Service oversees all offshore oil and gas production efforts as well as the royalties paid to the government by a producer of minerals, oil or natural gas on a leased site. Some are “in-kind payments” to the government in the form of oil and gas production sold on the open market.
Last year, the division collected $11 billion from fees charged to oil, gas and mining companies for extracting offshore minerals in addition to production on federal and Indian lands.
The report notes that MMS is one of the federal government’s largest sources of non-tax revenues.
During the past year, in September and again in May, inspector-general reports have portrayed MMS as a nest of conflict, lapsed controls and potential criminal conduct.
Director Randall Luthi told The Associated Press on Wednesday that the agency was taking the most recent reports “extremely seriously” and would review the allegations and weigh taking appropriate action in coming months.
Luthi said four of the employees were transferred to other departments last year.
The inspector general’s investigation took two years, cost $5.3 million, and included interviews with 233 people and nearly 500,000 pages of documents.
It found ethics breeches by 19 employees, some of whom worked in Washington, D.C. The inspector general recommended to Kempthorne that employees implicated in the report who are still with MMS be fired and be barred for life from working within the royalty program.
Democrats immediately seized on the allegations. From U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter, they issued statements arguing that a too-cozy relationship between the Bush administration and oil companies hurts taxpayers.
“The investigation also must closely examine how much this type of corruption has cost American — and Colorado — taxpayers,” Ritter said. “The oil-and-gas industry already benefits from taxpayer-funded subsidies, so the question is: How much has this scandal cost us in lost revenue?”
Pelosi, who Wednesday unveiled new energy legislation, tied in President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.
“Little did we know how cozy the relationship between Big Oil and the administration’s regulators have been,” Pelosi said.
The chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Democrat Henry Waxman of California, announced he will hold a hearing next week to examine the allegations in the report.
Many of the alleged misdeeds occurred when Gale Norton was secretary of the interior. Now a general counsel with Shell in Denver, Norton declined to comment, even when asked to address the portion of the reports dealing with the department she headed.
“It’s appropriate for me to let the Shell public-affairs people discuss it,” Norton said.
Shell is one of the oil companies named in the report, along with Chevron, Hess Corp. and Denver-based Gary-Williams Energy Corp.
“Shell has been aware of the inspector general’s investigation regarding alleged improper conduct by certain MMS employees and cooperated fully with that investigation,” said Shell spokeswoman Darci Sinclair. “However, it would be premature to comment on the Interior Department inspector general report until we have had an opportunity to review the content.”
Officials with Chevron could not be reached.
One report said that Gregory W. Smith, former head of the Lakewood MMS office, had sex and took illegal drugs with subordinates.
It also said he earned more than $30,000 while moonlighting as a consultant for an engineering firm linked to oil companies.
Smith could not be reached for comment Wednesday.
In an interview with AP, his attorney, Steve Peters, called the claims “sheer fantasy.”
“Greg Smith was a loyal, dedicated employee of the federal government for more than 28 years,” Peters said. “His efforts in running the Royalty in Kind program resulted in one of the most profitable government programs in American history.”
Smith, who retired during the inspector general’s probe, told investigators he and one of his employees “used cocaine together on approximately four or five occasions over a multiyear period.”
The inspector general’s office forwarded its findings on Smith to the Justice Department in March. The department declined to prosecute, the report said.
Another report focuses on workers in the Royalty in Kind office and details an atmosphere of booze-filled partying with oil and gas company workers.
Two women named in the report, Stacy Leyshon and Crystel Edler, became known among energy industry representatives as the “MMS chicks,” the report said.
Leyshon, according to the report, accepted approximately $2,887 in meals, drinks and golf outings on at least 74 occasions between 2002 and 2006.
The employees told investigators that they needed to socialize with oil company executives in order to gain information, and “when confronted by our investigators,” the IG report said, “none of the employees involved displayed remorse.”
Neither Leyshon nor Edler could be reached for comment.
In his letter to Kempthorne, Inspector General Devaney recommended developing an enhanced ethics program specifically for the Royalty in Kind office with an explicit prohibition against any gifts from industry, developing a strict code of conduct, and changing the management reporting structure so that management is not all located in Washington.
Anne C. Mulkern: 202-662-8907 or amulkern@denverpost.com
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Employees mentioned in IG reports
Interior Department employees singled out in three reports released by the Office of Inspector General on Wednesday:
Lawrence Cobb: Lakewood Royalty in Kind office’s credit manager. He accepted $236 in meals and drinks from industry representatives, officials said.
Lucy Querques Denett: Former associate director of the Minerals Revenue Management program, allegedly manipulated contracts to ensure they were awarded to former Interior employees. The inspector general referred the case against her to the Justice Department, which declined to prosecute.
Milton Dial: The former deputy associate director for Minerals Revenue Management. Dial is accused of helping to steer a federal consulting contract to Jimmy Mayberry’s firm and then, several months later, retiring and joining the firm. The two subsequently won a second consulting contract.
Crystel Edler: A former oil marketing specialist for the RIK office in Lakewood who, investigators said, accepted thousands of dollars in gifts from oil industry representatives and had sex with some.
Richard Fantel: Worked as an RIK oil- marketing specialist and accepted $333 in gifts from oil companies and was operating a consulting company whose website listed him as a Minerals Management Service employee, a violation of government ethics rules.
Donna Hogan: An RIK oil marketing specialist who investigators said accepted $249 in meals from industry representatives and a ticket to a Toby Keith concert.
Karen Krock: Former RIK oil-marketing specialist who investigators said accepted $198 in food and drink from industry.
Stacy Leyshon: A supervisor and mineral revenue specialist in the RIK office. Investigators said she took thousands of dollars in meals, drinks and other gifts from oil companies and had sex with some industry officials.
Jimmy Mayberry: Pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Washington to violations of conflict-of-interest laws. Mayberry is accused of working with Lucy Querques Denett prior to his retirement to write the requirements for a government contract that he ended up bidding on and winning after his retirement.
Gary Peterson: Minerals revenue specialist whose resume and photo appeared on the website of the consulting firm operated by Fantel. Investigators said Peterson failed to seek approval for outside employment.
Gregory W. Smith: Former head of the Lakewood RIK office, allegedly used cocaine and had sex with subordinates and steered government contracts to a consulting business that was employing him part time.
Allen Vigil: An RIK oil-marketing specialist who investigators said accepted $343 in meals and drinks from industry officials.
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Key Findings
Investigative report of MMS Oil Marketing Group, Lakewood
•Stacy Leyshon, a Minerals Management Service employee who worked as a supervisor for the Royalty In Kind program, received thousands of dollars in gifts from industry representatives and admitted to having sex with some.
•Records showed Leyshon accepted gifts valued at approximately $2,887 from Chevron, Shell and GWEC on at least 74 occasions between 2002 and 2006.
•Investigators found that MMS employee Crystel Edler engaged in similar conduct, accepting gifts valued at approximately $2,715 from Chevron, Shell, GWEC and Hess on at least 61 occasions between 2002 and 2006.
•The report said some in the oil industry referred to Leyshon and Edler as the “MMS chicks.”
•The report also alleges that Leyshon allowed oil company representatives to change bids after a contract was awarded. The investigators estimated the amendments to have cost the federal government about $4.4 million.
Excerpts
“Leyshon attended a myriad of events hosted and paid for by oil and gas industry representatives. We also found that she accepted golf, lodging, ski-related costs, and other gifts, often in the form of meals, from oil and gas companies.”
Investigators said Leyshon at one point admitted to having intimate relationships with two industry representatives. That contradicted an earlier statement that she had not had any “inappropriate or personal relationships” with industry representatives, investigators noted.
“When asked about the discrepancy between her sworn statement and statements made during her later interview, Leyshon explained that she did not think her relationships with these employees were inappropriate and she did not consider a ‘one-night stand’ to be a personal relationship.”
Investigative report of Gregory W. Smith
•According to the report, Smith, who ran the RIK program in Lakewood, also worked part-time for energy consulting firm Geomatrix. During that work, the report alleges, Smith used his contacts in his federal job to pitch Geomatrix to oil companies, for which Geomatrix paid him about $30,000. The report also alleges that Smith demanded sex from and used drugs with subordinates.
Excerpts
“We interviewed yet another RIK employee who stated that in approximately 2005, Smith ‘insisted’ that she ride in his car from one business establishment to another, and she agreed. … ‘He wanted to have sex; I said no,’ she recalled. Smith then asked if she would have oral sex with him, but she told him she did not want to. She said Smith then ‘basically forced (her) head into his lap,’ and she performed oral sex on him while he drove the car slowly.”
“The RIK employee said Smith once asked her for cocaine during the same time that Minerals Management Service performance appraisals were due and told her that if she could provide it, he would increase her performance award by $250. … According to the RIK employee, on more than one occasion, Smith directed her to purchase cocaine for him during normal MMS business hours, and Smith used the term ‘office supplies’ when discussing cocaine while at work.”
Investigative report of MMS — Federal Business Solutions Contracts
•The report examines the intertwined relationship of former Washington, D.C.-based Minerals Revenue Management associate director Lucy Denett and two colleagues and friends, Jimmy Mayberry and Milton Dial.
•The report alleges that, as Mayberry prepared to retire from MMS and form a consulting firm, Denett had him draw up a “statement of work” for a consulting contract. Dial created the qualification guidelines for the three- year, $449,151 contract, according to the report. He and Denett also served on the committee that evaluated companies vying for the contract, on which Mayberry bid and won, the report says.
•Dial then supervised the contract until retiring in late 2004 and, several months later, going to work for Mayberry’s firm. Around the same time, the report details, Denett worked to raise the funding for the contract by $66,575.
•Mayberry’s firm, Federal Business Solutions, then won a second contract worth $986,616 over three years.
Compiled by John Ingold and Tim Hoover, The Denver Post
==
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S._Elizabeth_Birnbaum
nwf took the fall deepwater blew gulf
==
Walter Cruickshank is the Deputy Director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement in the United States Department of the Interior. He has held this position since 2002. He also served for a time as acting director of that agency.
Cruickshank has a bachelor's degree from Cornell University and a Ph.D. in minerals management from Pennsylvania State University.
sci supp monnett
==
http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/05/27/mms.salazar/
The Minerals Management Service, a division within the Interior Department, was a troubled agency long before the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and the recent revelations of employee misconduct.
The agency -- which oversees U.S. offshore drilling, including the Gulf of Mexico -- has come under fire for mismanagement, questionable conduct and cozy relationships with industry officials.
The MMS issued permits for the Deepwater Horizon drill rig -- contracted by BP -- which exploded on April 20. The explosion killed 11 people and resulted in an oil spill that is threatening parts of the Gulf.
Interior Department Secretary Ken Salazar, during an appearance Wednesday before the House Committee on Natural Resources, said he was trying to change the agency's culture and its structure, which some critics say leads to mismanagement.
"My belief is that most of the employees of the MMS are good public servants," Salazar said. He, however, acknowledged some of the past conduct was "scandalous" and "reprehensible."
Salazar said some people have been fired and others referred for prosecution.Two sources told CNN on Thursday that MMS Director Elizabeth Birnbaum has been fired.
At a House subcommittee hearing Thursday, Salazar insisted Birnbaum had resigned "on her own terms and own volition." President Obama later said he didn't know whether Birnbaum was fired or resigned on her own.
The Obama administration has said in recent weeks that many of the problems within the MMS were inherited from the Bush administration. Salazar, during his testimony and in his answers to members of Congress on Wednesday, also made that point.
During the hearing, Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-Colorado, asked Salazar why he and other officials were "harping on what MMS did or didn't do in the previous administration."
"Why aren't we talking about the here and now?" Lamborn asked.
Salazar was blunt in his response. "We've done a lot to clean the house at MMS, unlike the previous administration," he said. "This is not the candy store of the oil and gas kingdom which you and others were a part of."
Conflict of interest?
The MMS, which has about 1,700 employees, has two responsibilities when it comes to industries such as oil or natural gas. It must act as a regulator while also collecting royalties from the companies.
Some critics say those are opposite pulls and make the agency ripe for mismanagement.
The U.S. government technically owns resources such as the oil in the Gulf. Companies pay the federal government for the rights to drill in certain areas. The MMS collects and distributes about $13 billion a year, Salazar said.
William Galston of the Brookings Institution said there is a built-in conflict of interest, resulting in lax regulation of involved companies.
"The MMS has a lot of incentive to collect as much, in the way of royalty income, as it can. That means pressure to authorize a lot of drilling and then to do everything possible [to make sure] that the flow of production is robust and unimpeded," said Galston, who recently wrote a piece critical of the MMS for The New Republic magazine.
"MMS, as it is currently structured, has to simultaneously put one foot down hard on the gas pedal and the other on the brake," he said. "And the imperatives to go fast are a lot stronger than to slow down."
Salazar said organizational change within the MMS and a restructuring of the agency was necessary to deal with such conflicts.
Salazar advocated plans to "remove revenue collectors away from the leasing and policing functions of the MMS."
He then wants to create two bureaus within the MMS. One would be responsible for creating energy resources -- including oil and gas -- in the outer continental shelf. It would issue leases and collect royalties.
The other would act as the policing arm of the agency, carrying out inspections and enforcing regulations.
'Misconduct, management and spills'
"MMS used to stand for Minerals Management Service. It now stands for misconduct, management and spills," said Rep. Edward Markey, D-Massachusetts, during the House hearing Wednesday.
A report released this week from the inspector general's office at the Interior Department revealed federal inspectors overseeing oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico accepted meals and tickets to sporting events from companies they monitored.
The report said all the events detailed in it occurred before 2007.
In one case, an inspector in the MMS office in Lake Charles, Louisiana, conducted inspections of four offshore platforms while negotiating a job with the company, the report said.
Others let oil and gas company workers fill out their inspection forms in pencil, with the inspectors writing over those entries in ink before turning them in.
The report also alleged employees at the same office received tickets to 2005 Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl football game from an offshore production company. The report also includes a confidential source informing investigators that a MMS inspector abused drugs, including crystal meth.
In 2008, during the waning months of the Bush administration, Earl Devaney, then the Interior Department's inspector general, issued a report condemning the behavior of some of the agency's employees.
"The single-most serious problem our investigations revealed is a pervasive culture of exclusivity, exempt from the rules that govern all other employees of the federal government," the report said.
The report said, between 2002 and 2006, some of the staff received gifts from oil and gas companies with whom they were conducting business.
Some of the more salacious charges in the report included substance abuse and sexual relationships with industry contacts.
'The revolving door'
Meanwhile, Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Florida, focused on the "revolving door" between industry and government.
The "revolving door" refers to people who work in areas such as the oil industry, move to a government agency such as the MMS and then return to the private sector.
Nelson proposed legislation that would have federal oil industry regulators wait at least two years after leaving government service before going to work for companies they helped regulate.
Among other things, the bill would bar regulators from accepting gifts from oil companies. It also would require regulators to divest themselves of any stock they may currently hold in oil companies, and prohibit them from part-time employment in the industry.
It is time, Nelson said Wednesday on the Senate floor, to "stop this cozy, incestuous relationship between the oil industry and the regulators."
==
Reactions are growing after a recent joint study by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement.
It found hydraulic fracking off the coast of California poses no “significant” environmental impact. The decision lifts a moratorium triggered earlier this year by a lawsuit from the Center for Biological Diversity. The group said it is considering other legal options to challenge the decision.
The Center for Biological Diversity said in a statement:
Offshore fracking was halted in January after a Center lawsuit challenged the federal government’s rubber-stamping of fracking permits without any analysis of threats to wildlife and ocean ecosystems. The case resulted in a settlement agreement that required the Obama administration to stop authorizing offshore fracking and acidizing until federal officials completed a review of the environmental impacts of the practices.
But today’s finding that offshore fracking has no significant environmental impact glosses over the serious hazards of fracking and fails to answer key questions about the risks of this controversial oil-extraction technique.
http://ecowatch.com/2016/06/02/offshore-fracking-pacific/
==
==
BOEM, according to those who interact with it, is a more responsible operation than its predecessor, the Minerals Management Service, where former staff scientists say their work was suppressed and where, in 2010, Alaska employees enjoyed a cake decorated with the words “Drill, Baby, Drill.” Environmental protection is, in fact, written into the agency’s mandate. Still, “science-based” energy management — leasing fossil fuel reserves and approving drilling plans — are at that mandate’s core.
“Even though some of the names shifted around, a lot of the culture of the agency remains the same,”
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http://grist.org/climate-energy/the-inside-story-of-shells-push-to-drill-in-the-arctic/
yeoman
Last May, four months before theoil giant Royal Dutch Shell suspended exploration in offshore Alaska, Christopher Putnam needed to get something off his chest.
Putnam is 44, originally from Texas, a trained wildlife biologist who also served as an Army infantry sergeant during the Iraq War. For almost six years, he has worked in Alaska for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service,protecting marine mammals. It has been his job to ensure that Shell’s plans to drill more than 60 miles offshore in the Chukchi Sea — the wild Arctic water between Alaska and Siberia — wouldn’t harm Pacific walruses, particularly the juveniles, calves, and nursing mothers that dominate the Chukchi during the drilling season.
Putnam’s relationship with Shell had always been amicable — until the company began insisting that walrus protection should take a backseat to economics and efficiency, and making it clear that it would fight any regulatory speed bumps placed in its way. That kind of determination made Shell a regular caller at the White House: Company president Marvin Odum was a guest there at least six times in the administration’s first two and a half years, and lobbyist Sara Glenn visited even more frequently, according to a 2012 New York Times article. In light of his “all of the above” strategy to foster energy independence, President Obama obliged by creating a task force to help clear Shell’s path through the bureaucracy, the Times reported.
Odum met in 2014 with then-presidential counselor John Podesta to discuss Chukchi drilling, though the exact details are unknown. The following year, Putnam began noticing leaders within the USFWS’s parent agency, the Department of the Interior, discussing in conference calls how to accommodate Shell’s demands. “Some people were working on various options — how we could interpret our regulations in such a way that were favorable that would allow Shell to do what they wanted to do,” he says. “When there’s discussion about changing the meaning of the regulations specifically to accommodate a company like Shell, then that started to become concerning for me.” By law, rule-making is a public process. “These discussions that were taking place behind the scenes, with no input or public accountability, were getting to the point that I simply wanted to put on the record that I had concerns.”
In a May 26 email, Putnam unloaded. “Shell has clearly stated that they think minimizing disturbance to walruses is irrelevant,” he wrote to his then-boss, Mary Colligan, who is now the USFWS’s Alaska assistant regional director. “Shell insists it is not they who must comply with federal regulations, but we who should change the regulations to accommodate Shell.”
Putnam then addressed the “voices” within the Interior Department that he says wanted to reinterpret the rules without involving the public. “I think it would be disingenuous, mendacious, and unethical,” he wrote. “Such a course of action may even be illegal.” If Shell were successful at skirting walrus-protection measures, what would come next? Would oil companies quietly try to lift industrial noise limits in the Arctic? Or weaken measures protecting denning polar bears? “Where,” he wrote, “would it end?”
After Shell received its approvals and started drilling in July, its first well came up dry, leading the company to withdraw from offshore Alaska “for the foreseeable future.” In its September pullout announcement, Shell laid some of the blame on the “challenging and unpredictable federal regulatory environment.”
But an Audubon investigation based on government documents — some filed in court and others obtained by Earthjustice, a nonprofit environmental law organization, through the Freedom of Information Act — points to a regulatory system that, while tougher than before the 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion and BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, still cut corners and stretched its own capacity in order to accommodate Shell’s drilling timeline. While USFWS scientists fought to protect marine mammals, they did so under crushing time constraints and at the expense of other conservation efforts. Meanwhile, at the Interior agency tasked with approving Shell’s oil leases and exploration plan, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), decision makers authorized overtime, weekend, and holiday work to deliver Shell a speedy decision, while failing to keep pace with climate and ecosystem science.
These findings mirror, in part, a new investigative report, released Dec. 7 by Interior’s Inspector General’s office. It detailed how some BOEM employees considered the agency’s timeline so aggressive that, in the words of one professional, a keyenvironmental analysis was “absolutely compromised” and “full of errors.”
These efforts to accommodate a multinational energy company happened under the watch of President Barack Obama, who is reviled, ironically, by drilling advocates and eager to cement his legacy as a climate warrior.
Shell declined several requests for interviews for this article. “This story is not relevant anymore,” wrote spokesperson Curtis Smith.
In fact, though, the story is just as relevant as ever. In October’s third-quarter earnings call, Shell CEO Ben van Beurden emphasized that while the first foray proved unpromising, “there are of course other potential prospects in our Chukchi leasehold, as well as other areas offshore of Alaska.” And after the current leases expire in four years, there could be more to come. A BOEM draft plan calls for new Arctic lease sales starting in 2020. Legislation pending in Congress at press time would require regular sales starting in 2023, even as new science cautions against Arctic drilling. Things might be quiet off the Alaskan coast right now, but that tranquility could very well prove temporary.
When Shell won the vast majority of the drilling rights in the 2008 Chukchi lease sale — aka Lease Sale 193 — it called its $2.1 billion acquisition a victory for energy independence. “This is an opportunity to develop a proven and prolific basin to supply energy security for North America,” company vice president Annell Bay told reporters.
Conservationists couldn’t imagine a worse place to drill, a place more fertile, more unspoiled, more vulnerable to climate change. Along with walruses, the Chukchi teems with polar bears, ringed seals, and bowhead and beluga whales. “Coming from the Lower 48, you don’t see areas like this, that are untouched by development,” says Leah Donahey, senior campaign director for the Alaska Wilderness League. Donahey recalls flying over the Chukchi in 2011 and watching thousands of belugas swimming below her. Inland she saw bears running on the tundra, and massive herds of caribou. There were no roads, no infrastructure — “just these small communities and then vast ocean.”
Those communities rely on the ocean’s bounty: Subsistence hunting of marine mammals feeds many native Alaskans. “If we don’t have the animals to provide for our nutritional needs, we won’t survive,” says Faith Gemmill, executive director of Resisting Environmental Destruction on Indigenous Lands (REDOIL), a grassroots organization. “It’s not just about food security. We’re talking about our entire way of life.” In Iñupiat villages, during traditional whale hunts, she says, “the stories are taught. The values are taught. Knowledge is passed down from the elders to the younger people.”
Even before Shell bought its leases, REDOIL and the Alaska Wilderness League joined other groups, including the National Audubon Society, in suing the Bush administration to stop the sale. The 2008 lawsuit, filed by Earthjustice, noted that rising temperatures are already stressing polar bears and walruses. (The Arctic is warming twice as fast as the planet as a whole.) The Interior Department, said the plaintiffs, was selling leases without fully gauging the impacts on climate change, the likelihood of a spill, or the damage to wildlife caused by the deafening air guns used during seismic surveys. Nor, they added, did the government adequatelyconsider harm to Steller’s and Spectacled Eiders, both threatened ducks.
It was the first of several hard-fought legal cases over drilling in the Chukchi — cases that continue today, outlasting Shell’s pullout announcement.
As the litigation meandered through the courts, two disasters gave ammunition to critics of Arctic drilling. First, the BP oil spill exposed lethal flaws in the regulatory system. It prompted new safety regulations and President Obama’s dissolution of BOEM’s predecessor, the Minerals Management Service, where staffers infamouslyaccepted gifts from, and indulged in sex and cocaine with, their energy-industry contacts. Second, Shell itself threw the perils of Arctic drilling into focus when it suffered a series of setbacks during its first season of exploration in 2012, culminating in the grounding of the drill ship Kulluk on Sitkalidak Island as it was towed through the Gulf of Alaska during a storm.
In January 2014, the Ninth Circuit issued a key decision in Earthjustice’s lease-sale challenge — and highlighted the government’s efforts to help clear Shell’s path. The judges noted that BOEM based its environmental analysis on the “lowest possible amount of oil that was economical to produce.” By estimating just 1 billion barrels, the agency lowballed the possible impacts on habitat, climate, and bird populations. “BOEM considered only the best case scenario for environmental harm,” the court wrote. The decision led BOEM to revise its studies. For the environmental impact statement (EIS) finalized in February 2015, it chose a new and more reasonable estimate of 4.3 billion barrels — and, based on that, calculated a 75 percent chance of “one or more large spills” during the 77-year Chukchi production cycle.
BOEM maintains that such an accident would probably not be “catastrophic” in scale; its “likely” projected large spill from a production platform, based on the median size of similar spills, is 214,200 gallons, or less than 1/600th the volume of the BP disaster. But experts note that cleaning any discharge in the Chukchi would be a formidable, even impossible, task. Unlike the Gulf Coast, the region lacks basic infrastructure: There are no roads connecting villages or even rooms to house cleanup workers. The nearest Coast Guard station is a thousand miles away. There’s little research about how to keep marine mammals away from a spill — and only enough equipment to clean five oiled polar bears at a time. And, perhaps most alarming, there’s no comprehensive method for ridding icy water of oil; most cleanup studies have focused on temperate climates.
“We’re talking about killing the environment,” says Robert Bea, a professor emeritus of civil and environmental engineering at the University of California-Berkeley, who spent decades working for Shell and other energy companies. “Just think about an ice slushie with oil, with beluga and bowhead whales swimming around. If you do harm, it’s going to be extensive and it’s going to be long-term.”
With delays piling up, Shell was nonetheless resolute about resuming exploratory drilling in 2015. Two months after the Ninth Circuit ruling, in April 2014, company president Odum sent a letter to Interior Secretary Sally Jewell, whose department oversees BOEM. He asked her to “devote the resources necessary to removing, expeditiously, any current regulatory obstacles” that might slow down his company’s plans. Odum encouraged Jewell to “obtain any necessary additional resources to complete the work” on Shell’s schedule, which the company outlined in a one-pager called “Getting to Yes 2015 — Must Have Timeline.”
Numerous internal agency emails and memos suggest that BOEM — while not promising Shell a specific outcome — did its Chukchi drilling evaluation at a breakneck pace. “We are keeping to this schedule to allow Shell the opportunity to make a decision about next year’s open water drilling season,” Assistant Interior Secretary Janice Schneider said in August 2014, according to an email by BOEM’s Alaska regional director, James Kendall.
The agency drew up its own timetables, filled with various notations. “This schedule includes working overtime and weekends and holidays,” said one footnote. Requests for annual leave, training, and even office visitors would face “critical review.” Environmental analyses would receive “compressed review time.” And the hastened process, noted an agency document, might interfere with other major tasks like developing new air-quality regulations.
In August, Kendall sent an after-hours email to BOEM deputy director Walter Cruickshank.B2] “Yes, its [sic] Saturday night and I’m in the office. … But I’m not alone, others are here as well,” he wrote. Kendall reported on a conversation with Assistant Secretary Schneider, aboard a government airplane, about the plan for completing the environmental impact study on time. “She … expressed her view (repeatedly) to me of just how absolutely difficult this was, almost bordering on impossible … and that it was obvious that there is absolutely NO WIGGLE room.
“Folks are exhausted, blurry eyed, working long hours,” Kendall continued. “There are a number of folks on the floor with me as I type this. Emotions are running high. … Given the fact that folks will now have to run a marathon at a sprinters [sic] pace for some months now, we are working out a strategy for crossing the finish line on time.”
Not everyone crossed the finish line. According to the recent Inspector General’s report, Interior knew of at least six BOEM employees who quit or retired early because of the EIS race. One fish biologist said the process was so “crushed” that she didn’t have time to review her own work for consistency or to peer-review others. She retired early, in October 2014, to preserve her own “personal and scientific integrity.” Another biologist said his collaboration with colleagues was limited to 15 to 45 minutes for a 700-page document. A sociocultural specialist said her section on public health was “gutted.”
The Inspector General concluded that BOEM officials did not alter scientific findings. But the attorneys at Earthjustice, in a brief filed in U.S. District Court in August 2015, nonetheless identified two fundamental flaws in the EIS that was released in 2015 after the Ninth Circuit decision.
First, BOEM decided, because of its fast-tracked schedule, not to place certain sectors of the Chukchi, which scientists had recently identified as ecologically important, off-limits to drilling. Interior had begun its first environmental review a decade ago, when “information about the Chukchi Sea environment, habitat, and marine life was starkly limited,” wrote the lawyers. Since then the research has evolved, particularly about Hanna Shoal, a large, shallow area where the ice persists late into summer. Bowhead whales feed there, and great herds of walruses forage for clams. BOEM itself calls the shoal a “biological oasis,” and last year President Obama protected some of it from future, but not current, lease sales. Yet in its court-ordered update to the EIS, BOEM decided not to consider a new drilling footprint that would exclude Hanna Shoal. The agency said “sufficient protections” exist to safeguard marine mammals. Earthjustice points out in its brief that there’s a big difference between reducing harm and barring drilling from an area altogether.
Second, Earthjustice charged that BOEM all but ignored what advances in climate science have revealed about the impact of drilling. It insisted there was “no reliable methodology” to determine how Lease Sale 193 would affect global energy consumption. The EIS didn’t mention, even in its 69-page bibliography, a January 2015 paper from the journal Nature concluding that “all Arctic resources” must stay in the ground to keep the planet within 2 degrees C of pre-industrial temperatures. “The impact of a single discrete project’s contribution to climate change cannot be covered in more detail due to scientific uncertainty,” the EIS said, adding that recent papers calling for undiscovered hydrocarbons to remain undeveloped “are noted.”
Contacted for an interview, BOEM referred questions to the Interior Department, which declined the request without offering a reason. In a short emailed statement, BOEM spokesperson Connie Gillette said her agency conducted a “robust and rigorous” environmental review “consistent with a court-ordered timeline.” In fact, the court did not impose a timeline but rather directed BOEM to develop its own. In the Inspector General’s report, Interior officials acknowledged the rush. They said it wasn’t designed to help Shell but rather to shield the department from “blame” if Shell missed out on drilling in 2015.
Former and current Interior staffers say BOEM’s efforts to accommodate Shell are not unusual. “Once you’ve granted a lease, there is internal pressure to propagate the regulatory process,” says Paul Bledsoe, who was an aide to Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt during the 1990s and more recently advised President Obama’s national commission on the BP oil spill. “There’s certainly pressure from the industry.” Others say the agencies regulating offshore production tend to draw employees sympathetic to drilling — environmentalists rarely study petroleum engineering. Add to that President Obama’s support for Arctic oil, and his desire not to be seen as stifling production, and the scale ends up being tipped.
BOEM, according to those who interact with it, is a more responsible operation than its predecessor, the Minerals Management Service, where former staff scientists say their work was suppressed and where, in 2010, Alaska employees enjoyed a cake decorated with the words “Drill, Baby, Drill.” Environmental protection is, in fact, written into the agency’s mandate. Still, “science-based” energy management — leasing fossil fuel reserves and approving drilling plans — are at that mandate’s core.
“Even though some of the names shifted around, a lot of the culture of the agency remains the same,” says attorney Miyoko Sakashita, oceans director at the Center for Biological Diversity, a plaintiff in the Earthjustice case. “The deep reforms that a lot of us were hoping to see after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill were in name but not actually in practice.”
One of Shell’s hardest-fought battles in the Chukchi was over the rules protecting Alaska’s estimated 129,000 Pacific walruses. According to the USFWS’s Mary Colligan, concentrated industrial activity can cause grave harm to marine mammals, including walruses. “At the extreme, if they avoid an area because the disturbance is so high, and have to feed somewhere else, maybe the prey base isn’t as calorie-rich,” she says. That, in turn, can jeopardize survival or reproduction. Industrial noise can damage hearing and impede vocal communication.
In 2013, the USFWS developed regulations governing exploratory drilling in the Chukchi. One rule mandated a minimum 15-mile separation between active rigs. That buffer would help reduce the risk of hearing loss among walruses and give them safe passage if they needed to escape. Christopher Putnam, the wildlife biologist and Iraq vet — and Colligan’s colleague — helped craft that rule.
Shell fought the 15-mile rule. The Chukchi well sites were tightly clustered within a 300-square-mile prospect, and the company wanted to position its rigs at the two most promising sites — just nine miles apart. It would already be spending the resources for a second rig because, in its exploration plan filed with BOEM, Shell had agreed to have a backup vessel in the vicinity to drill a relief well in the event of a blowout. According to Robert Dillon, a senior adviser to Alaska’s senior senator, Republican Lisa Murkowski, Shell didn’t want that rig sitting idle when it could be drilling for oil.
However, if the activity would affect certain marine mammals, Shell couldn’t drill until the USFWS issued a letter of authorization. Like their colleagues at BOEM, Fish and Wildlife staffers felt compelled to make their decisions in time for the 2015 drilling season. “We understood how important it was for Shell,” says Colligan. “They certainly communicated that to us very clearly.” Colligan calls this a courtesy the USFWS extends to all drillers because of the complex timing of their operations. “They’ve got ships staging here and there,” she says. “They’ve got decisions they have to make. That’s the environment that we were in.”
The company conceded that drilling two wells located within nine miles of each other would flood more of the sea with noise, but pushed to prioritize other considerations. “Various distances may be required between rigs to effectively, efficiently, and economically explore the geological positioning of the oil and gas resources,” said an analysis Shell filed with the USFWS in April 2015. “Spacing of the rigs needs to be determined by these characteristics rather than an attempt to further minimize potential behavioral disturbance of walruses.”
With that the oil company put its foot down. “Shell, as part of their 2015 proposed drilling operations, indicates it is not willing to comply with all required mitigation measures,” said a USFWS document. The company’s absolute stance struck Putnam as odd. “It’s not their decision,” he says. “Not to put too fine a point on it, but we’re the federal government.”
Shell claimed, in an April 2015 letter to Fish and Wildlife, that a nine-mile separation would have “negligible impact” on the animals. USFWS biologists remained unconvinced. They said Shell had undercounted the walrus population and failed to factor in such disturbances as the Sikorsky S-92 helicopters flying by 40 times a week. “The S-92,” Putnam wrote in an email to an Interior Department lawyer, “is one of the loudest helicopters on earth.”
With that much air traffic, Putnam says, a helicopter could startle thousands of animals resting on the ice. “They stampede into water, and you’ve got how many dead or injured walruses.” Chronic stress from loud noise could potentially trigger hormonal changes that threaten population size, he adds.
Dealing with Shell’s insistence became a full-time job for Putnam. “I lost half a year,” he says. “Our entire department was almost exclusively focused on that one company, that one issue, for the entire period of time.”
Putnam says he was supported by his Alaska colleagues in holding firm to the regulations. “We were reaching up the chain to make sure everyone was aware,” he says. “As you go higher and higher up, people become less and less aware of the details and nuances of the issue.” Hence the conference calls where Interior officials were groping for new interpretations of the rules, he says.
He found one call particularly upsetting. An Interior staffer he had never met suggested that the Alaska office was misinterpreting the intent of the mammal-protection rules — rules that Putnam himself had helped author. “It was a little bit offensive,” he says, “for someone who’s never been involved to tell me what I was thinking at the time when I wrote them.”
Shell would not be deterred by the USFWS’s scientists. It enlisted Sen. Murkowski, a drilling advocate, whose staff contacted the Interior Department to press the case. “That’s our job: to be the advocates for Alaska,” says Murkowski spokesperson Dillon.
Then, in May, Allyson Anderson, associate director of Interior’s Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, emailed her boss about a phone call with an Alaska colleague. “Shell intends to take the wildlife issue all the way up through the White House via murkowski [sic],” she wrote.
Dillon says that, to his knowledge,Murkowski did not take the walrus issue that far. “I believe they [Shell]may have raised it with the White House,” he says — a plausible notion given the company’s past access — adding that that’s how Washington works: “Environmental groups clearly take their case directly to the White House on a regular basis. The right to seek the assistance of one’s government without fear of punishment or reprisals is enshrined in our Constitution.”
What eventually preserved the 15-mile mandate in Shell’s drilling authorization, Colligan says, was “procedural”: There was no system for waiving the rule. Fish and Wildlife did promise to “consider making appropriate changes” to the rule through a public process, though that wouldn’t come in time for the 2015 season.
In the end, notes Putnam, Interior officials narrowly defined “active” rigs as those actually drilling. As a result, Shell was allowed to locate its rigs nine miles apart as long as they didn’t drill simultaneously. The problem, according to Putnam, is that a non-drilling rig is still staffed and “active”: It requires helicopter support, noisy anchoring operations, icebreakers, and generators. In other words, there were still two industrial operations within nine miles of each other.
In a bigger sense, though, the 15-mile rule might have been a deciding factor in Shell’s decision to pull out of offshore Alaska — because the Arctic’s short drilling season ended up limiting the company’s activity to a single well in 2015, and that one was a dud. After seven years of political and legal wrangling, countless raucous grassroots protests, and $7 billion in Arctic investments, Shell’s foray into Lease Sale 193 halted rather suddenly. Drilling supporters like Lisa Murkowski placed the blame for Shell’s pullout partly on the Obama administration’s “destructive pattern of hostility” toward energy production. “We’re seeing decisions out of the Interior that are really destroying our hope to be independent as a state,” Murkowski said at an October meeting of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, which she chairs. She was displeased with Interior’s cancellation of two upcoming Alaska lease sales because of low industry interest, and with its refusal to extend Shell’s current leases.
The federal government plans oil and gas lease sales in five-year increments. The next plan, set to be finalized this year, will cover 2017–22. The current draft calls for sales in the Beaufort in 2020 and the Chukchi in 2022. Beyond that, Murkowski’s proposed Offshore Production and Energizing National Security Act of 2015 (Senate Bill 2011) would require Interior to sell three Chukchi and three Beaufort leases during every five-year program, starting in fiscal year 2023.
But drilling opponents see Shell’s withdrawal as a chance to take a breath and rethink the country’s approach to the Arctic’s energy reserves. They consider it a window of time available to overhaul the regulatory system further to reflect a post-BP world, and to examine whether the industry’s Arctic drilling ambitions should be scaled back or abandoned altogether. “The United States has been myopic for far too long in making decisions about the Arctic,” says Peter Van Tuyn, an Alaska attorney who has represented environmental and native Alaskan groups in challenging drilling. “Why not take the opportunity for the Obama administration to do a big-picture planning effort in the next year?
“We have a fresh opportunity,” Van Tuyn continues. “For the first time in the Obama administration’s seven years in office, they do not have to make a decision about the future of the Arctic with some existing weight on the development side of the scale.” The $7 billion that Shell invested to drill a single well made for quite a heavy weight. “Now,” Van Tuyn says, “that scale can be leveled.”
Since 1905, Audubon, America’s leading advocate for conservation — and for birds — has used explanatory and advocacy journalism, as well as stunning original photography,
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January 23, 2004: Subsidies Announced for Gas Drilling in Gulf of Mexico:
Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton announces that the Interior’s Minerals Management Service (MMS) will provide an estimated $1 billion in subsidies to promote deep drilling for natural gas in the shallow waters of the Gulf of Mexico.
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rev door; MMS sept 2008 int dept report charlie savage nyt 9/11/08 "sex, drug use and graft..."
both b2 and bc appt'd insiders to run
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WASHINGTON — As Congress prepares to debate expansion of drilling in taxpayer-owned coastal waters, the Interior Department agency that collects oil and gas royalties has been caught up in a wide-ranging ethics scandal — including allegations of financial self-dealing, accepting gifts from energy companies, cocaine use and sexual misconduct.
In three reports delivered to Congress on Wednesday, the department’s inspector general, Earl E. Devaney, found wrongdoing by a dozen current and former employees of the Minerals Management Service, which collects about $10 billion in royalties annually and is one of the government’s largest sources of revenue other than taxes.
“A culture of ethical failure” pervades the agency, Mr. Devaney wrote in a cover memo.
The reports portray a dysfunctional organization that has been riddled with conflicts of interest, unprofessional behavior and a free-for-all atmosphere for much of the Bush administration’s watch.
The highest-ranking official criticized in the reports is Lucy Q. Denett, the former associate director of minerals revenue management, who retired earlier this year as the inquiry was progressing.
http://www.muckety.com/Lucy-Q-Denett/145410.muckety
http://truth-out.org/archive/component/k2/item/80044:wideranging-ethics-scandal-emerges-at-interior-deptartment
...
But the report presents evidence that the officials knew their behavior crossed the line. One of the royalty-in-kind employees said a supervisor told them not to talk to other government officials about their travel activities because the others might report them to the inspector general.
In addition, in 2006 Mr. Smith convened a study group to draft a proposal to exempt the office from regular government ethics rules. Although Ms. Denett sponsored the group, she told investigators she did not know that officials were accepting gifts from the industry. The proposal was never implemented.
Several of the lower-ranking program officials have been transferred out of their old jobs, the report said. It recommended a series of reforms to make clear that such behavior is inappropriate and illegal.
The investigations took over two years and cost more than $5 million. Inspector general personnel reviewed over 470,000 pages of documents and emails and interviewed 233 witnesses and subjects — including employees of the government and oil companies.
While most of the oil companies allowed investigators to interview their employees, the cover letter noted, one major firm, Chevron, would not cooperate. A spokesman for Chevron said he would check into the case but did not immediately provide an explanation.
Wide-Ranging Ethics Scandal Emerges at Interior Deptartment - Truthout
www.truth-out.org/article/wide-ranging-ethics-scandal-emerges-interior-dept
1.
Sex, Drug Use and Graft Cited in Interior Department - The New York ...
www.nytimes.com/2008/09/11/washington/11royalty.html
1.
“a Culture Of Ethical Failure” Pervades The Agency, Mr. Devaney Wrote In A Cover Memo.
SEX, DRUG USE AND GRAFT CITED IN INTERIOR DEPARTMENT
“a culture of ethical failure” pervades the agency, mr. devaney wrote in a cover memo.
http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/Interiorreport2-20080910.pdf
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/06/18/877102/-Dick-Cheney-rears-his-head-over-the-Gulf-disaster
Fri Jun 18, 2010 at 01:52 AM PDT
Dick Cheney rears his head over the Gulf disaster
You may also know that Dick Cheney has ended his seclusion in a secure, though disclosed, location.
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Among those friends and the key positions they occupied:
- July 15, 2009, assumed duties as Director of MMS;
- before that, worked for Committee on House Administration;
- 2001-2007, Attorney for American Rivers, the nation’s leading river conservation organization;
- 1991 to 1999 House Committee on Natural Resources;
- 1987 to 1991 Water Resources Program of the National Wildlife Federation;
This does not sound like someone with too close ties to the oil and drilling industry.
http://motherjones.com/environment/2011/07/charles-monnett-polar-bear-scientist
http://www.propublica.org/scandal/oil-for-sex/
New Report Details Wide-Ranging Ethics Scandal at Interior Dept.
ProPublica, Sep. 10, 2008, 4:30 p.m.
Update: We’ve just added the scandal under “Sex, Drugs, and Oil [1]” to our Scandal Watch.
Interior Department Inspector General Earl Devaney (Chris Greenberg/AP Photo)
Since the reports don’t seem to be publicly available, we thought we’d post them.