New oil drilling safety rules announced

WASHINGTON, Sept. 30 (UPI) -- The U.S. Interior Department issued new offshore drilling safety rules but rejected lawmakers' requests to lift its moratorium on new deep-water drilling.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced the drilling and workplace safety regulations during a speech in Washington, saying they were the latest steps in overhauling the department's oversight of offshore resources following the April 20 Deepwater Horizon rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico and its subsequent disastrous oil spill, CQ Politics reported. Eleven rig workers died in the explosion.

"Under these new rules, operators will need to comply with tougher requirements for everything from well design and cementing practices to blowout preventers and employee training," Salazar said. "They will also need to develop comprehensive plans to manage risks and hazards at every step of the drilling process, so as to reduce the risk of human effort."

The drilling safety rule mandates new requirements for well design and new inspections of blowout preventers and other equipment. The other rule requires offshore operators to develop new comprehensive safety programs affecting nearly every step of the drilling process.

Additional safety rules are expected in the "coming weeks," Salazar said.

Salazar said the moratorium on new deep-water drilling would be lifted only "when I am comfortable that we have significantly reduced those risks."

Critics, including Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, maintain the ban unfairly hampers shallow-water drilling, effectively banning all drilling and further straining the region's economy, CQ Politics reported.