Alternatives for Inspecting Outer Continental Shelf Operations (1990) / Chapter Skim
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5. Considerations in Evaluating OCS Inspection Alternatives
5. Considerations in Evaluating OCS Inspection Alternatives
Pages 51-57
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From page 51... ...
Court decisions require MMS to afford an operator time to correct a deficiency before imposing a civil penalty. In effect, the operator never is subject to civil penalties.
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From page 52... ...
View of Congress The MMS traditionally has focused its efforts on literal compliance with the inspection function described in the OCSLA, i.e., to conduct annual and spot inspections.2 In the event of a serious accident on the OCS, such as the one that destroyed the Occidental Oil platform Piper Alpha in the North Sea in July 1988, it is likely that the Congress would conclude that literal compliance with the OCSLA reflected only weak credit on MMS's stewardship, if other risk-reducing activities of the general kind taken by federal agencies regulating other risk-intensive operations had not been taken. Most of the alternative inspection programs described in Chapter 4 contemplate the addition of modest planning and risk-analysis activities that could be undertaken within current budgetary levels.
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From page 53... ...
Both government and operator resources are at issue. Government Resources An alternative inspection program that reduces MMS offshore inspection time will reduce government costs.
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From page 54... ...
These costs appear in the form of federal and state taxes, insurance fees, public medical expenses for families of people killed or injured, the intangible human emotional costs of losses of life and property, and the costs of damage or destruction of environmental resources and cleanup. Any inspection system that increases safety produces cost savings in these areas.
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From page 55... ...
SAFETY PERFORMANCE ACCOUNTABILITY The candidate inspection systems encompass a variety of ways to monitor performance of MMS personnel, operators, and the inspection system itself. The data collection and safety analysis effort required to produce safety trend information will provide much of the basic data needed for monitoring of operator performance.
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From page 56... ...
GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS Underlying the eight considerations discussed above is a fundamental requirement that any acceptable MMS inspection program must satisfy: it must contribute toward the overall goal of safely operating facilities on the OCS. This basic goal includes
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From page 57... ...
However, the OCSLA is not explicit about what constitutes an inspection or who performs it, as long as the MMS inspection program ensures that those goals are being achieved. Thus it would appear that MMS is free to implement measures it believes would be more effective than current practices in achieving its safety goals (based on MMS's interpretation that the law requires its inspectors to witness testing of every safety device annually)
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