Oil trade group denounces wave of regulations

The oil and gas industry is being hit by “a tsunami of regulations” that threaten to add costs, suppress job growth and curb domestic energy production, the American Petroleum Institute says. In a conference call with reporters timed just two months before the Nov. 6 election, API officials accused the Obama administration of imposing unneeded regulations and ignoring industry input on the rules, The Houston Chronicle reports. “We’ve seen numerous examples of regulatory decisions that move in the wrong direction,” says Erik Milito, API’s upstream group director. In particular, Milito singled out the Interior Department’s five-year plan for offshore energy development, which includes a dozen sales of Gulf of Mexico leases and three auctions of drilling rights in waters around Alaska. API’s director of scientific and regulatory affairs, Howard Feldman, blasted the administration for advancing “a tsunami” of environmental rules that would apply only to U.S. refineries, not to their overseas competitors. Among the regulations at issue are possible mandates governing sulfur in fuel and greenhouse gas emission limits on refineries. Given the current global marketplace, Feldman says, “now is not the time to impose still more requirements unless the need is indisputable,” adding, “When jobs are paramount, additional regulations are not helping.” Read the full story here.