Editor’s Note: The Executive Order Implementing an America-First Offshore Energy Strategy may be found here in the Trump Regulation Library.
From: The National Law Review
Michael D. Farber,R. Scott Nuzum, Jonathan D. Simon,Van Ness Feldman LLP
On April 28, 2017, President Donald J. Trump—flanked by Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski, Alaska Representative Donald Young, Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke, and others—signed an Executive Order (EO) intended to fundamentally revise federal offshore oil and gas policies. The EO, entitled “An America-First Offshore Energy Strategy,” constitutes a significant first step by the Trump Administration to follow through on the President’s campaign promise to “[o]pen . . . offshore leasing on federal lands,” which, in turn, was part of the President’s broader commitment that the United States “[b]ecome, and stay, totally independent of any need to import energy from the [Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries] or any nations hostile to our interests.”
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Ultimately, industry should seek to ensure that the Trump Administration—including those within the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB)—understand the true cost of this rule on industry. One of the principal criticisms of the regulations and policies highlighted in the EO is that the Obama Administration did not accurately account for costs of these rules on the regulated community. Accordingly, early engagement with BOEM and OIRA will be critical to ensuring that the air quality rule achieves its underlying environmental objectives without unnecessarily interfering with expeditious and orderly OCS development.