The Obama administration is putting a new cop on the beat to police offshore drilling safety rules.
Administration officials announced today that they were hiring Rear Adm. James Watson to take over as chief of the Interior Department’s new Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement. Watson is set to begin his new job on Dec. 1, after retiring from the Coast Guard.
Watson, currently the Coast Guard’s director of prevention policy for marine safety, security and stewardship, is a veteran of the 2010 Gulf oil spill, having served as the federal on-scene coordinator of the government response to the Deepwater Horizon disaster after June last year.
Before that, he was chief of staff of the Seventh Coast Guard District in Miami, Fla., and the budget chief in Coast Guard headquarters in Washington, D.C. Watson’s background includes marine and mechanical engineering; he graduated from the Coast Guard Academy in 1978 with a Bachelors of Science in marine engineering and later earned two master of science degrees in mechanical engineering and naval architecture.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said in a statement that Watson “has the experience, leadership, and vision that BSEE needs to be successful in establishing and enforcing safety and environmental protections for offshore oil and gas operations.”
Salazar added that Watson brings a “commitment to tough and fair-minded enforcement” to the job.
Watson will be taking the reins from Michael Bromwich, a former federal prosecutor who has briefly led BSEE as an interim director and, before that, spent more than a year spearheading a major overhaul of the government’s oversight of offshore drilling as head of the now-defunct Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Regulation and Enforcement. Bromwich will leave the Interior Department at the end of December. Bromwich’s future plans are not clear.
Industry officials — who know Watson from his work after last year’s oil spill — welcomed the move. Watson may be viewed as a departure from Bromwich, who was known primarily as a tough enforcer with a history cleaning up troubled agencies.
Randall Luthi, the president of the National Ocean Industries Association and a former federal offshore drilling regulator, noted that not many people in the industry know Watson well.
But, he added, “we’re looking forward to working with him. We think he brings with him a great career in managerial experience as well as having a great understanding of the Gulf of Mexico and some of the issues facing industry.”
The American Petroleum Institute was similarly upbeat.
“We look forward to working with Rear Adm. James A. Watson in his new position as we continue to advance safe and environmentally responsible operations, meet increasing energy demand and bolster domestic energy production while supporting millions of jobs in a time of continued global uncertainty,” said API’s upstream and industry operations director, Erik Milito, in a statement.
Rep. Jeff Landry, R-La., who has grilled Bromwich about some post-spill drilling regulations, said he was encouraged by Watson’s appointment, since “the Coast Guard is ready and willing to work together with both industry and Congress to find ways forward.”
“I hope that Adm Watson brings to BSEE the Coast Guard’s common-sense and their ability to work with those involved in energy development off our coasts to find solutions,” Landry said in a statement. “I look forward to working with Admiral Watson to make positive changes to BSEE and not allow the Obama administration to change him.”
Federal officials had struggled initially to find an ideal candidate to permanently take over the top spot at BSEE, the agency that is tasked with conducting engineering and safety examinations of proposed drilling, permitting individual offshore wells and enforcing environmental and safety regulations.
Salazar noted recently that as the public face of the administration’s offshore drilling program, the BSEE head has to be prepared to deal with often red-hot politics surrounding the issue. On Capitol Hill, Gulf Coast lawmakers — including Landry — have tangled with Bromwich over the pace of permitting oil and gas projects along the nation’s coastlines and new regulations governing offshore energy production.
A separate agency, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, is charged with handling offshore leasing and evaluating exploration plans. BOEM is headed by Tommy Beaudreau, a lawyer who was a senior adviser in BOEMRE before it was carved up on Oct. 1.
Bromwich took over the helm of BOEMRE in June 2010. He was brought in to help reshape the agency in the wake of the Gulf oil spill.
When he accepted the post, Bromwich made clear that he was compelled by Salazar and President Barack Obama to take on the job because of the urgency of the situation. At the time, Bromwich said that this was “a public service challenge that I really needed to accept.”
“The challenges we faced at the outset were daunting, but we have made offshore exploration and production safer and more environmentally responsible than ever before,” Bromwich said in a statement today. “The work of strengthening offshore safety and environmental protection is not complete, and never will be. It is an ongoing project that will require continued vigilance on the part of government, industry and the public.”
Before taking on offshore drilling, Bromwich spent six years as the independent monitor for the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Police Department, where he kept an eye on officers’ use of force. He also was an inspector general for former President Bill Clinton’s Justice Department, where he investigated misconduct at the FBI. And he led an aggressive examination of the medical care provided to inmates in Delaware’s prisons.
Bromwich also drew praise for his sweeping, two-year probe of the Houston Police Department crime lab, after allegations of bad management, under-trained staff and inaccurate work surfaced in 2002. The $5.3 million investigation culminated a 332-page report that raised serious questions about the reliability of evidence used in nearly 200 criminal cases.
“Bromwich’s future plans are not clear.”
My bet is he will lobby on behalf of the oil & gas industry. Any takers?
Salazar doesn’t know his @zz from deep center field, so you might consider the source.
Ms. Jennifer,
Michael Bromwich appears to have illegal facial hair for hydrocarbon sites. Are you sure he’s not “Cousin Pookie?”
Watson is (what we used to call) a “political officer.” Pfah.
Hey, why does Bromwich have a beard at his visit to the Ensco rig? You can’t wear a mask that’ll be airtight with that kid of facial hair. Another great Obama pick… someone with zero experience in the field “chosen” to lead a federal agency. Don’t we have enough lawyers screwing up things?