Today, Department of the Interior Secretary Sally Jewell announced the final well control rule for offshore energy exploration and development. Chairman Rob Bishop (R-UT) issued the following statement:

“I was not alone in pointing out the many failures in the original draft of this rule that would harm existing safety innovation and undercut responsible offshore development. I am pleased to see that our efforts to shed more light throughout this closed-door process yielded modest changes. Development is safely occurring in the Gulf right now, and it will take some time to see how this rule impacts the vast reform that has already been put into place over the past several years.

 “As we review the final rule, one thing remains certain: our nation’s regulatory process is broken. In this case, the Administration failed from the get-go by locking technical experts out of the regulatory process until the announcement of our Gulf hearing prompted Interior to begin scheduling technical meetings. We need more transparency and a collaborative dialogue to produce better results for American businesses and families. Nobody cares about safety and environmental stewardship in the Gulf more than the families who live there and proudly produce American energy. Washington owes it to them to not threaten the future existence of their jobs.

 “A bureaucrat in Washington will never be able to manufacture and force safety comparable to what industry experts have and continue to create. We urge the Administration to shift their philosophy to one that encourages the production of affordable energy and believes in human ingenuity.”

On April 1, Committee leaders wrote a letter to the Office of Management and Budget highlighting the negative unintended consequences of this rule, urging them to revise the rule and extend public comment. The Administration has yet to respond to this letter.