Milton Financials: Oil industry groups lobbying for more funding to speed up offshore drilling permits.

Numerous oil industry groups have urged the U.S Congress to allocate further funding to the federal offshore drilling regulator to hasten permitting and environmental reviews.

A number of oil industry groups have appealed to the U.S. Congress to urgently increase funding to the Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEMRE) to speed up the permitting and environmental reviews. In the wake of the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico the U.S. administration increased safety standards and introduced new regulations which are delaying the process for greenlighting offshore oil and gas projects for development.

"It is imperative that BOEMRE is provided the necessary resources to review and process permits to drill in OCS waters, and to maintain a vibrant leasing program," Milton Financials believes the letter from oil industry groups including the American Petroleum Institute and the Independent Petroleum Association of America said.

Numerous oil firms have complained that the U.S. department is not sufficiently staffed to handle the stringent new legislation and that permit issuing delays have brought drilling in the Gulf of Mexico to a virtual halt.

Sources known to Milton Financials report the Obama government has appealed to congress to add an additional $100 Million to the Interior Department’s budget for next year to support extra staffing and safety reforms.

In response, Michael Bromwich, head of BOEMRE, has said that the agency will not become a “permitting mill” and that oil firms should not expect applications to receive the same speedy treatment they were accustomed to in the past.

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This release was published on openPR.