Marcus Baram
Huffington Post

House Republicans want to drop one of the key components of the Interior Department’s overhaul of the troubled agency responsible for oversight of offshore drilling — expanding the enforcement of regulations to contractors.

Though BP and rig owner Transocean have been largely blamed for last year’s Deepwater Horizon disaster, contractor Halliburton has come under scrutiny for its cementing work on the job. The presidential commission investigating the tragedy uncovered documents showing that several separate tests by Halliburton indicated the cement was “unstable,” yet didn’t report all of those results to BP. Halliburton, which has claimed that those were preliminary tests, did admit that it did not perform a stability test on the actual cement recipe used on the well. The oil services giant has rejected blame for the failed cement job and pointed the finger at BP.

In the wake of the tragedy, Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Regulation and Enforcement expanded its rules beyond just the oil companies that hold the drilling leases. But a committee report released with Interior’s fiscal 2012 spending bill limits that expansion (h/t The Hill):

The Committee is concerned with the Bureau’s stated intentions for the expansion of regulatory authority over non-lease holders under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA). The authority and need for this action has not been explained or justified to the Committee, nor how this diversion of limited resources would impact the Bureau’s current mission and objectives identified in the fiscal year 2012 request. The agency is directed to use all the resources provided toward the regulatory efforts presented in the fiscal year 2012 request and that no funds be expended for other purposes until the agency has fully explained its authority, intentions and objectives to the Committee and the public.
A spokesperson for the committee did not return calls for comment.