ECONOMY/OIL/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “While attention has been focused on President Trump’s disputed decision in January to reverse drilling restrictions in nearly all United States coastal waters, the administration has also pursued a rollback of Obama-era regulations in the Gulf. Those rules include safety measures put in place after the explosion and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon rig in 2010, a disaster that killed 11 people and resulted in the largest marine oil spill in drilling history. … But an analysis of federal inspection data by The New York Times found that several of the independent companies seeking the rollback, including Energy XXI, had been cited for workplace safety violations in recent years at a rate much higher than the industry average. Their offshore platforms suffer in some cases from years of poor maintenance, as well as equipment failures or metal fatigue on aging devices, records show. … Concern among enforcement officers has been growing because some of the independent companies are looking to extend operations toward the Gulf’s deep waters, where the risks are even greater. … Safety remains a focus. … But the primary concern voiced here is economic. ‘Half the supply boats and crew boats up and down the bayou have been seized by the banks,’ said Kathleen Chiasson, who once ran a truck-dispatching company that supplied the industry, and now works behind the counter of a gas-station mini market.”
– Eric Lipton, “Trump Rollbacks Target Offshore Rules ‘Written With Human Blood’,” The New York Times online, Mar. 10, 2018