Recommendation: The Secretary of the Interior should direct the Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals Management, who oversees BSEE, to establish a mechanism for BSEE management to obtain and incorporate input from bureau personnel and any external parties, such as Argonne, that can affect the bureau's ability to achieve its objectives.

Agency: Department of the Interior
Status: Open
Priority recommendation

Comments: In its June 9, 2017, response to our report, Interior indicated that BSEE is developing new strategies to improve trust and foster greater collaboration for consideration by the new Director. In September 2018, Interior provided documentation of several BSEE actions, including establishing an Employee Engagement Council, an Innovation Program, and Ombudsman position within the bureau. As of August 2020, BSEE indicated that these efforts remain ongoing. However, this recommendation remains open because BSEE has not yet demonstrated that these actions represent an enduring institutionalization of improved communication throughout the bureau.

Recommendation: The Secretary of the Interior should direct the Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals Management, who oversees BSEE, to address leadership commitment deficiencies within BSEE, including by implementing internal management initiatives and ongoing strategic initiatives (e.g., Enterprise Risk Management and performance measure initiatives) in a timely manner.

Agency: Department of the Interior
Status: Open

Comments: In its June 2017 response to our report, Interior indicated that BSEE will incorporate lessons learned from its first enterprise risk management cycle in future cycles and that BSEE will incorporate a performance management dashboard in fiscal year 2018. In August 2019, BSEE provided documentation regarding actions it has taken to implement and institutionalize its enterprise risk management and performance measure initiatives. In August 2020, BSEE indicated that implementation of these processes remains ongoing. However, this recommendation remains open because BSEE has not yet demonstrated that these actions represent an enduring institutionalization of improved internal management initiatives and ongoing strategic initiatives throughout the bureau.

Recommendation: The Secretary of the Interior should direct the BSEE Director to address trust concerns that exist between headquarters and the field, BSEE should expand the scope of its employee engagement strategy to incorporate the need to communicate quality information throughout the bureau.

Agency: Department of the Interior
Status: Open

Comments: In its June 2017 response to our report, Interior indicated that BSEE's response to this recommendation would be incorporated into its corrective actions for recommendation one. In September 2018, Interior provided documentation of several BSEE actions, including establishing an Employee Engagement Council, an Innovation Program, and Ombudsman position within the bureau. As of August 2020, BSEE indicated that these efforts remain ongoing. However, this recommendation remains open because BSEE has not yet demonstrated that these actions represent an enduring institutionalization of expanded employee engagement throughout the bureau.

Recommendation: To enhance its ability to effectively oversee offshore oil and gas development, the Secretary of the Interior should direct the Director of the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement to continue to implement its restructuring effort. To enhance its investigative capabilities, BSEE should establish a capability to review investigation policy and collect and analyze incidents to identify trends in safety and environmental hazards.

Agency: Department of the Interior
Status: Open

Comments: According to BSEE documentation, the Safety and Incident Investigations Division (SIID) is working closely with the Office of Policy and Analysis and the Records, Delegations, and Directives Team to implement the requirements specified in the BSEE Directives System Manual Chapter and to convert a number of Bureau Interim Directives into Bureau Manual Chapters. In May 2018, BSEE provided the results of an internal control review it had conducted to assess compliance with the tiering process outlined in the National Investigations Handbook. In particular, the Internal Control Review recommended that BSEE (1) continue revision of its National Investigations Handbook, (2) evaluate investigation tier designation, and (3) develop additional investigative training. In July 2019, BSEE provided documentation that it had converted four Bureau Interim Directives into Bureau Manual Chapters and that, in response to the Internal Control Review, it had (1) revised its National Investigations Handbook, (2) evaluated investigative tier designation, and (3) implemented additional training. As of August 2020, BSEE leadership and SIID personnel are considering changes to improve the quality and consistency of its investigative tier designation with a planned completion date of December 31, 2020.

Recommendation: To enhance its ability to effectively oversee offshore oil and gas development, the Secretary of the Interior should direct the Director of the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement to continue to implement its restructuring effort. To enhance its environmental compliance capabilities, BSEE should develop a plan to address documented environmental oversight staffing needs.

Agency: Department of the Interior
Status: Open

Comments: According to BSEE documentation, the BSEE Director has ordered an assessment. In the meantime, inspectors are being trained to assist with environmental oversight responsibilities as appropriate. BSEE informed us during the first quarter of fiscal year 2018 that it expected to develop a plan to address documented environmental oversight staffing needs by 2020. Officials said that the timeline was pushed out to allow time to finish policy and complete a work risk assessment. In September 2019, BSEE indicated that it had identified three corrective actions based on its evaluation of risks associated with the organizational structure of the bureau's environmental compliance program that will address this recommendation. As of August 2020, BSEE anticipates implementing these actions by the end of fiscal year 2021.

Recommendation: To improve Interior's oversight of offshore oil and gas activities in the Gulf of Mexico, the Secretary of the Interior should enhance Interior's capacity for identifying and evaluating offshore oil and gas drilling operations according to risk, thereby allowing it to adjust and evaluate its oversight accordingly by (1) identifying and systematically collecting and maintaining reliable data on risk factors associated with drilling operations, (2) providing operators with clear definitions for significant events in the weekly well activity reports and developing a way to characterize and record these events systematically and reliably, and (3) using the risk factors and significant events data to develop a risk-based approach with clear criteria to prospectively evaluate and categorize drilling operations according to risk and retrospectively to evaluate the performance of oversight and risk mitigation activities in avoiding significant events.

Agency: Department of the Interior
Status: Open
Priority recommendation

Comments: Interior has taken steps to identify and evaluate drilling risks, and its work is ongoing. For example, according to BSEE officials, BSEE's SafeOCS program is one effort through which data is collected on risk factors associated with drilling. BSEE expanded the SafeOCS program in 2016 to include required reporting of well control equipment and barrier failure incidents. Additionally, in 2017, BSEE completed two retrospective analyses of factors associating with risk, however, according to BSEE officials, both analyses were limited by the quality of the data. In December 2019, Interior officials stated that the Gulf of Mexico Region's Office of District Operations Support (DOS) has been developing an approach to apply a secondary review to drilling permits deemed to be "high risk." According to these officials, this secondary review will be performed by pre-selected subject matter experts, identified because of their experience with certain aspects of drilling operations. To determine what drilling permits should receive a secondary review, DOS explored a variety of approaches before settling on a two-prong method. Because efforts remain ongoing, it is too soon to assess the extent to which these efforts will be successful. Until such policies are fully implemented and shown to be effective, Interior may not be able to adjust and evaluate its oversight--including inspections--in a cost-effective manner.