Bromwich to Conduct Public Meetings on Offshore Drilling

Michael Bromwich, head of the Department of the Interior’s newly formed Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEM), is planning a series of public meetings across the country to get feedback on the future of deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.

Bromwich has scheduled meetings next month in New Orleans, La., Lafayette, La., Mobile, Ala., Pensacola, Fla., Santa Barbara, Calif., and Anchorage, Alaska. The meetings, according to an Interior Department press release, will include participation from the “general public, state and local leaders, and experts from academia, the environmental community, and the oil and gas industry.” The meetings will focus on drilling safety and oil spill response recommendations.

The meetings will largely be used to take the public’s temperature on future deepwater drilling. They come as the Obama administration has imposed a moratorium on deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, a ban that many Gulf coast lawmakers and the oil industry believe will lead to further economic damage in the region.