SWESC Responds to BOEM Director Bromwich

September 13, 2011 -- Jim Noe, executive director of the Shallow Water Energy Security Coalition, made the following statement regarding outgoing Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Director Michael Bromwich’s speech today at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Today’s remarks by Director Bromwich resemble the closing arguments of a life-long litigator attempting to frame an argument for a skeptical jury.  Unfortunately, the jury in this case is the people of the Gulf region, who know the truth when they see it because they are living it. 

Mr. Bromwich accuses industry of using “incorrect and misleading statistics” to support “politically motivated”  attacks on his agency’s performance.  Yet if anyone can be accused of using misleading statistics, it is Mr. Bromwich himself, who has repeatedly used cherry-picked “historical averages” to paper over the sluggishness of his agency’s permit approval process.

What Mr. Bromwich fails to understand is that industry has little use for playing politics or using misleading statistics.  The fact is, shallow-water drillers have worked the same mature reservoirs in the Gulf since the Truman administration, drilling mainly for natural gas that supplies homes and businesses all across the country.  Today, our industry is unable to secure permits from the BOEMRE in a timely manner.  This comes at a cost of eroding business confidence, lost jobs, rigs departing for overseas markets, and the bankruptcy of a major industry player.

It is somewhat ironic that Mr. Bromwich would exhort industry to “step up its game if it is genuinely interested in a more efficient process.”  Why would companies that live or die on their ability to secure permits seek anything other than the most efficient process possible?  As a trained lawyer, Mr. Bromwich may reflexively perceive ulterior motives among those he interacts with.  In the real world, there is simply no alternative to genuine efficiency if an enterprise is to survive.