Page 51 - The Voice 2017

IAGC COMMENTS ON NOAA/NMFS

STREAMLINING REGULATORY
PROCESSES

The 25 August joint IAGC/API comments focused on the regulation of the
offshore oil and gas and geophysical industries and outlined the regulatory
challenges the industries have encountered and provided an example to
illustrate these challenges. The Associations emphasized these regulatory
challenges have become so severe that they seriously threaten the ability of
the industries to explore and develop the oil and gas resources of the U.S.
Outer Continental Shelf (OCS).

The Associations are concerned about the worrisome difficulties that serve
no practical purpose and do not address any concrete problems that have
been, or can be, identified with actual information and scientific data.
Further, the difficulties the industry encounters are derived from agency
perceptions that are not based on actual science but instead are based
upon hypothetical imaginations of the worst possible effects that could
be caused by certain activities. Compounding this problem is NMFS's
approach to establishing the regulatory baseline through ESA listings and
critical habitat designations that has proceeded in a similarly unscientific,
IAGC MONITORS AFRICA "precautionary" manner.
ENVIRONMENTAL
NORM AND STANDARDS
PROTOCOL

On 27 March 2017, the UN
Environment Programme
published a Draft Additional
Protocol to the Abidjan
Convention for Environmental
Norms and Standards for Offshore
Oil and Gas Activities that will
now be considered for ratification
by individual member nations
in Africa. Included in the draft
Protocol are specific special
measures for seismic surveying
in sensitive areas, mandatory
completion of environmental
impact assessments, and a public
consultation processes which
could attract increased anti-oil and
gas environmental organization
(eNGO) attention.

The IAGC circulated the draft
protocol to our members and
will keep the committees updated
when the protocol public comment
periods open within each country.
The IAGC is also working on this
issue with the African Union and
Ambassador to the U.S.

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