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Axios
Axios
Politics
Orion Rummler

Trump administration rolls back offshore drilling safety rules put in place after Deepwater Horizon

Workers clean tarballs from the BP oil spill on Waveland beach Dec. 6, 2010, in Waveland, Mississippi. Photo: Mario Tama/Getty Images

The Interior Department announced a rollback on an Obama-era offshore drilling safety rule put in place after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon BP oil spil, the Wall Street Journal reports.

The big picture, via Axios' Amy Harder: This is one of the most controversial regulatory rollbacks pursued by the Trump administration, due to the high-profile disaster that is still America's worst oil spill. 11 workers died in the BP incident, and oil spilled into the gulf from a ruptured well for nearly three months before it was capped. 


Details: "The rule imposed tougher standards on equipment designed to keep control of a well," which involves blowout preventers that measure "the amount of pressure drillers must maintain to avoid accidents," WSJ notes.

  • These changes "could save the oil industry up to $1.5 billion over a decade, according to department officials."

Go deeper: Report: BP paid off Mexican government with $25 million after oil spill

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