Angelle wants to help struggling industry
The oil and gas industry finally has a friendly face in Washington, D.C. Scott Angelle, who has an extensive background in the work of the office he will be directing, has been tapped by President Trump to become director of the federal Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, a branch of the U.S. Interior Department that regulates offshore drilling.
Industry leaders have praised the appointment, saying it comes at a time when the oil and gas sector has endured some difficult years in Louisiana. The decline of oil prices has caused the loss of thousands of jobs and state economists say that is why the state is currently in a recession. The Obama administration imposed an oil and gas drilling moratorium that contributed to the industry’s decline after the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig caught fire in 2010, claimed 11 lives and spilled millions of barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.
Trump is clearing away some of the Obama restrictions on oil and gas drilling. He insists that will create jobs and lower energy prices, and Angelle will have an opportunity to help make it happen.
The Advocate in a news report said the president has talked about an energy revolution and proposes to accelerate the permitting process for oil and gas exploration on federal lands and possible new drilling in U.S. Arctic waters. Environmentalists have expressed some concerns about the appointment, but Angelle says they don’t need to worry.
“We don’t have to either have robust production or safe drilling,” he told the newspaper. “We can have both, and I’m going to make that my No. 1 responsibility.”
Three groups will be consulted in order to get well-rounded views about how to proceed in accomplishing goals outlined by Trump. Angelle said those will be industry leaders, environmental groups and oil patch workers. He said the workers were marginalized by the Obama administration. Angelle is well-qualified for his new position. He got his bachelor’s degree in petroleum land management from ULL, was head of the state Department of Natural Resources from 2004 to 2012 and resigned from the state Public Service Commission to take the new job. DNR oversaw oil and gas development, coastal restoration and protection and mineral resource issues.
We hope he is sincere when he says the agency won’t sacrifice safety or environmental safeguards while he tries to help stimulate the state’s oil and gas industry that desperately needs a shot in the arm.