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Suggested Citation:"Appendix A: Statement of Task." National Academy of Engineering and National Research Council. 2013. Best Available and Safest Technologies for Offshore Oil and Gas Operations: Options for Implementation. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18545.
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Appendix A

Statement of Task

An ad hoc committee will identify options the Department of Interior’s Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) could use for improving the implementation of the “best available and safest technologies” (BAST) requirement in the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act. As the committee develops options, it will review those options and issues that BSEE itself already is considering; examples of which include the feasibility and appropriateness of establishing a formal industry committee to make BAST determinations about new and improved technologies; whether it will need to develop test protocols for every technology it evaluates in order to fairly compare competing technologies; how to determine economic feasibility in a manner that is independent of industry; whether it should rely on the development of consensus standards; and whether it should initiate a more vigorous process with various possible improvements to blowout preventers. The committee will identify a range of options and the pros and cons of each, but it will not recommend a specific BAST implementation approach.

Following its initial meeting, the committee will prepare a brief report commenting on existing BSEE proposals to implement BAST. In developing its final report at the conclusion of its study, the committee will include consideration of the following:

 

•   Other relevant safety requirements that bear upon technologies for offshore oil and gas operations;

•   Relevant reports of previous NRC committees and other organizations;

•   The potential role of neutral third parties in making BAST assessments;

•   The role of human factors in the safe use of technologies by industry; and

•   Resource requirements of federal agencies for BAST implementation.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix A: Statement of Task." National Academy of Engineering and National Research Council. 2013. Best Available and Safest Technologies for Offshore Oil and Gas Operations: Options for Implementation. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18545.
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Best Available and Safest Technologies for Offshore Oil and Gas Operations: Options for Implementation explores a range of options for improving the implementation of the U.S. Department of the Interior's congressional mandate to require the use of best available and safety technologies in offshore oil and gas operations.

In the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, Congress directs the Secretary of the Interior to regulate oil and gas operations in federal waters. The act mandates that the Secretary "shall require, on all new drilling and production operations and, wherever practicable, on existing operations, the use of the best available and safest technologies which the Secretary determines to be economically feasible, wherever failure of equipment would have a significant effect on safety, health, or the environment, except where the Secretary determines that the incremental benefits are clearly insufficient to justify the incremental costs of utilizing such technologies."

This report, which was requested by Department of the Interior's Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE), also reviews options and issues that BSEE is already considering to improve implementation of the best available and safest technologies requirement.

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