Outer Continental Shelf Pipeline Permitting and Regulating

A review was made of Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) pipeline permitting and regulatory functions within the Federal Government. Effective implementing regulations need to be developed by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to ensure that the intent of Congress concerning nondiscriminatory access to all OCS pipelines is carried out.

FERC has not aggressively carried out its responsibilities for enforcing nondiscriminatory access to OCS pipelines. FERC has made no formal attempt to inventory the OCS pipelines which might have been subject to its enforcement responsibility and only has reacted to company complaints or other filings in exercising its enforcement authority. According to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the two agencies have issued 72 and 42 permits, respectively, to a total of 61 companies for pipelines in the Gulf of Mexico which carry production to shore. FERC officials were unable to identify which of these pipelines were subject to FERC enforcement. These officials also indicated that their information system is independent from that maintained by BLM and USGS. FERC records show only 34 companies with pipelines transporting production to show. Thus, it appears that FERC was unaware of 27 other companies with pipelines which very likely should have been subject to its enforcement authority.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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