Cruickshank, Walter
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America's regulator of at-sea energy is without a permanent director as it prepares to carry out Donald Trump's instructions and review the US offshore wind leasing process with a remit that includes “terminating or amending” projects.
The Interior Department under President Trump quietly issued an order Monday thatblocks activities that enable renewable development on federally-owned lands or offshore.
For 60 days, the government will notissue any leases, rights of way, contracts or “any other agreement required to allow for renewable energy development.”
The directive was signed by acting Interior Secretary Walter Cruickshank, who is helming the agency until Trump’s nominee Doug Burgumis confirmed by the Senate.
The order says that its purpose is to implement “atargeted and time-limited elevation of relevant decisions at the Department of the Interior … for the purpose of reviewing the questions in fact, law, and policy they raise.”
It comes as Trump has launched an assault on wind energy in particular, issuing an executive order that pauses new approvals for wind energy. But applying the pause to renewables broadly is an escalation as it also pauses solar energyaction as well.
Read more at TheHill.com.
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American government official
Walter Cruickshank is an American government official who served as Deputy Director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. He served as Acting Secretary of the Interior from January 20, 2025 to February 1, 2025. Continued in Wikipedia
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Congress.gov
Testimony of Dr. Walter D. Cruickshank Deputy Director Bureau of Ocean ...
Jan 11, 2024Testimony of Dr. Walter D. Cruickshank Deputy Director Bureau of Ocean Energy Management U.S. Department of the Interior Before the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources January 11, 2024 Chairman Stauber, Ranking Member Ocasio-Cortez and members of the Subcommittee, I am pleased to appear before you today to discuss the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management's (BOEM ...
U.S. Department of the Interior
https://www.doi.gov › ocl › ocs-access
OCS Access - U.S. Department of the Interior
Jan 11, 2024My name is Walter Cruickshank, and I am the Deputy Director of BOEM, a bureau within the Department of the Interior. BOEM's mission is to manage development of U.S. Outer Continental Shelf energy, mineral, and geological resources in an environmentally and economically responsible way.
Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Walter_Cruickshank
Walter Cruickshank - Wikipedia
Walter Cruickshank is an American government official who served as Deputy Director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. He served as Acting Secretary of the Interior from January 20, 2025 to February 1, 2025.
E&E News
https://www.eenews.net › articles › burgum-names-senior-bureaucrat-as-acting-energy-development-lead
Burgum names senior bureaucrat as acting energy development lead
Mar 3, 2025Walter Cruickshank, a senior Interior Department career staffer who has overseen offshore energy leasing, will serve as acting assistant secretary of land and minerals management.
subscriber.politicopro.com
POLITICO Pro | Article | Interior replaces longtime head of offshore ...
Apr 1, 2025Walter Cruickshank, the longtime civil servant who helped lead the Interior Department's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management for more than two decades, is retiring.
budsoffshoreenergy.com
https://budsoffshoreenergy.com › 2025 › 06 › 10 › congratulations-walter-cruickshank
By:
Ben Lefebvre
| 04/01/2025
E&E NEWS PM | The longtime head of the Interior Department agency that oversees offshore energy production in deep waters is stepping down and will be replaced by an energy industry lobbyist, people familiar with the matter, who were granted anonymity to discuss personnel moves that were not yet public, said Tuesday.
The change comes as the Trump administration has cut thousands of experienced career staffers even as it seeks to boost U.S. oil production from its record high levels.
Walter Cruickshank, the longtime civil servant who helped lead the Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management for more than two decades, is retiring, three people told POLITICO. It was unclear when his last day will be.
Cruickshank has led BOEM since its creation in 2011 and helped lead its predecessor agency for nearly a decade before that. He had worked at Interior for 40 years, according to his department biography. Cruickshank had briefly been the acting head of Interior before the confirmation of Interior Secretary Doug Burgum.
...
Congratulations Walter Cruickshank! | Bud's Offshore Energy (BOE)
Jun 10, 2025Congratulations to Walter Cruickshank on his retirement from the U.S. Dept. of the Interior! Walter's policy acumen, in depth understanding of the offshore program, and balanced perspective on energy development earned him the respect of the political leadership from both parties, a rare achievement.
Recharge
With Biden-era chief Klein gone, BOEM gets set to obey Trump's orders ...
Feb 12, 2025Elizabeth Klein, who led coastal regulator Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) to approve about 17GW of offshore wind capacity, has left the position and been replaced by long time civil servant and perennial stand-in Walter Cruikshank, the agency confirmed to Recharge.
U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources
https://www.energy.senate.gov › services › files › 6E108D54-E3B4-430E-B19F-20BF90C882D8
Walter Cruickshank Acting Director Bureau of Ocean Energy Management U ...
My name is Walter Cruickshank and I am the Acting Director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM). BOEM is responsible for managing the development of our Nation's offshore energy and mineral resources in an economically and environmentally responsible manner. BOEM accomplishes this mission through its oil and gas, renewable energy, and marine minerals programs, all of which are ...
Governors' Wind Energy Coalition
https://governorswindenergycoalition.org › trump-names-slate-of-acting-energy-enviro-bosses
Trump names slate of acting energy, enviro bosses - Governors' Wind ...
Jan 20, 2025Walter Cruickshank will serve as the Interior Department's acting secretary, the White House announced on a website detailing picks for temporary agency leaders. Trump's nominee to lead Interior, Doug Burgum, is awaiting Senate confirmation.
The American Clean Power Association
Walter Cruickshank, Deputy Director, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management
New York Bight Draft Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement On behalf of the American Clean Power Association ("ACP") and our member companies engaged in developing offshore wind power projects, we are writing to follow up on our March 13, 2024 comments1 on the New York Bight Draft
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2017
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/13072017/arctic-offshore-drilling-trump-approved-eni-boem-alaska
Making good on its promise to jump-start Arctic offshore drilling, the Trump administration gave Italian oil company Eni a quick green light on Wednesday to drill exploratory wells off the coast of Alaska.
This is the first Arctic drilling approval under President Donald Trump. It also will be the first exploration project conducted in the U.S. Arctic since Shell's failed attempt in the Chukchi Sea in 2015.
The approval comes as the administration attempts to overturn former President Barack Obama's ban of new drilling in federal Arctic waters. Eni's leases were exempt from Obama's ban because the leases are not new.
Environmental groups are calling the approval a sign that Trump is doing the bidding of the oil industry. The public had 21 days to review and comment on the exploration plan and 10 days to comment on the environmental impacts,which Kristen Monsell, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity, said was insufficient given the potential risks.
"An oil spill here would do incredible damage, and it'd be impossible to clean up," Monsell said. "The Trump administration clearly cares only about appeasing oil companies, no matter its legal obligations or the threats to polar bears or our planet."
Eni plans to drill four exploratory wells in December 2017, just before the leases expire at the end of the year.
The wells will be drilled from Spy Island, an existing gravel island in state waters, located three miles off the coast of Alaska. The wells would be the longest extended-reach wells in Alaska—stretching six miles horizontally into an area of shallow federal waters about six feet deep.
"We know there are vast oil and gas resources under the Beaufort Sea, and we look forward to working with Eni in their efforts to tap into this energy potential," said the Management's acting director, Walter Cruickshank, in a statement.
Monsell noted that Eni had not pursued exploratory drilling there until its leases were about to expire.
"Approving this Arctic drilling plan at the 11th hour makes a dangerous project even riskier," she said.
In June, the Center and 12 other environmental organizations, including Earthjustice, Greenpeace, WWF and the Sierra Club, sent comments to BOEM about Eni's proposed plan. In their comments, the groups said that Eni's plan failed to adequately assess the extent of environmental harm the project could pose, the likelihood of an oil spill, or how Eni would respond to a large oil spill.
"Eni simply has failed to submit a complete, adequate Exploration Plan and environmental impact analysis, and, accordingly BOEM should rescind its completeness determination and reject Eni's Exploration Plan," the groups wrote.
BOEM disagreed, finding that the project would have "no significant impact."
"Eni brought to us a solid, well-considered plan," Cruickshank said.
Eni has said it will only drill in the winter when a potential oil spill would be easier to clean up and when whales are not migrating in the area.
Before Eni can drill, it will have to secure additional permits from the state Department of Environmental Conservation and the federal Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement.
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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.
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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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Offshore Drilling Regulators Had Concerns, but Let Industry Self-Police
by Marian Wang
ProPublica, May 7, 2010, 12:41 p.m.
When regulators at the Minerals Management Service had concerns about the safety equipment for offshore oil rigs, the agency did not impose stronger regulations and instead allowed industry to police itself, according to two pieces in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal today.
The agency has been scrutinized for its role in the massive BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, particularly for failing to follow up on concerns it had -- several years before the BP incident -- about equipment that should have stopped the spill but did not.
The New York Times reports that in 2000 and in 2009, MMS "warned oil companies" about problems with a device called a blowout preventer, "reminding them that they needed to have ‘a reliable back-up system in place.'" And yet, despite those concerns:
More than a decade ago, with the support of the industry, the agency reduced the frequency of inspections of blowout preventers from once a week to once every 14 days, citing the disruptions that these tests caused to oil drilling and extraction efforts.
This isn't the first time MMS showed itself to be particularly sensitive to the effect of regulation on oil companies.
The Wall Street Journal reported last week that the regulatory agency had once considered requiring a backup shutoff device -- in addition to the primary blowout preventer -- called an acoustic switch. When the industry argued against having to adopt the $500,000 device, MMS backed down and said the device was "not recommended because they tend to be very costly."
The Journal reports today that MMS also commissioned a researcher to study the reliability of blowout preventers. In 2002, the researcher recommended that the devices include a second "ram shear" to close off the pipe, in case the first didn't work, but MMS ignored the recommendation.
Apparently, that researcher had the right idea. The Deepwater Horizon rig had only one ram shear, and that shear didn't do its job. Requiring the industry to add a second ram shear, however, would've meant imposing an extra expense.
In 2007, MMS released a report citing an "encouraging" decrease in fatalities caused by blowouts from 1992-2006. Officials have cited it as evidence that offshore drilling has become safer in recent years.
But the safety record of U.S. offshore drilling "compares unfavorably" to the records of other major oil-producing countries, according to the Journal. Offshore oil workers in the U.S. were more than four times as likely to be killed than workers in European waters, according to data from the International Association of Drilling Contractors.
MMS officials told the Journal that the agency "plans to toughen its oversight." To the Times, however,MMS' current deputy director Walter Cruickshank "disputed that the agency has a history of deference to the industry or a pattern of lax oversight."
"We have inspectors going off shore every day that the weather allows," Cruickshank told the Times. "The enforcement is quite strict."
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Walter D. Cruickshank, Ph.D., was designated Deputy Director of the Minerals Management Service on April 8,2002. Cruickshank assists the MMS Director in the administration of programs that ensure the effective management of energy and mineral resources located on the nation’s outer continental shelf — including the environmentally safe exploration, development, and production of oil and natural gas — and the collection and distribution of revenues for minerals developed on federal and American Indian lands.
Cruickshank previously served as Associate Director for Policy and Management Improvement for MMS since 1997. In that capacity he, provided leadership for advancement of the Presidents' Management Agenda; maintained a focus on high-priority issues; ensured that policy options were analyzed from a variety of perspectives; provided the Director with an administrative appeals process; provided coordination, guidance and expert advice; enabled MMS compliance with the Government Performance and Results Act; and conducted selective pilot projects.
Cruickshank received a Bachelor of Arts in Geological Sciences from Cornell University and a Doctorate in Mineral Economics from The Pennsylvania State University.
walter
As Deputy Director of BOEM, Dr. Cruickshank assists the Director in the administration of programs that manage the development of the Nation’s offshore resources in an environmentally and economically responsible way. These programs include leasing, plan administration, environmental studies, National Environmental Policy Actanalysis, resource evaluation, economic analysis and the Renewable Energy Program.
Prior to becoming the Deputy Director of BOEM upon its establishment in October 2011, Dr. Cruickshank served as Deputy Director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE) and the former MMS since 2002.
Dr. Cruickshank previously served as the Bureau's Associate Director for Policy and Management Improvement and has worked in the Department of the Interior for more than 25 years. He earned a Bachelor of Arts in Geological Sciences from Cornell University and a Doctorate in Mineral Economics from the Pennsylvania State University.
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