Court Rulings Affirm OCSLA Regulations Do Not Apply to Contractors
Following the conclusion of two recent court cases – USA v. Black Elk Energy Offshore, and Island Operating Co v. Jewell – the US Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) will no longer be able to hold contractors liable for violations of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA).
“It’s clear that, from both a criminal and civil context, the issue of contractor liability has been struck down,” said Jonathan Waldron, Partner at Blank Rome LLP. “The courts in both of these cases made it very clear that BSEE was trying to make a policy change without going to rulemaking after 50 years of precedent.”
In 2012, BSEE released an Interim Policy Document announcing that the agency would begin issuing Incidents of Non-Compliance (INC) and levying fines against contractors for violations of the OCSLA. Previously, INCs were issued only against operators, not contractors. “It was the operator’s responsibility to make sure that the contractor was complying with the law,” Mr Waldron said. The change in policy was likely a reaction to Macondo, he added. “The government never went after contractors before. After Macondo, they got very aggressive.”
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“Court Rulings Affirm OCSLA Regulations Do Not Apply to Contractors,” by Kelli Ainsworth Robinson was published in the January/February 2018 edition of Drilling Contractor.