Offshore drilling safety is back on the congressional agenda after months of tough budget negotiations dominated the debate on Capitol Hill.

While comprehensive energy legislation, including offshore drilling safety reform, stands little chance of passing in the tough political climate of the current Congress, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are renewing their focus on the subject and calling hearings to grill both Obama administration officials and the executives of companies involved in last summer's Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion that killed 11 workers and launched the nation's worst oil spill.

That disaster continues to be the primary driver behind the debate, but lawmakers have different motivations for forging ahead with discussions. Some lawmakers are convinced the industry is safe and want to prove that to federal regulators so they will issue permits faster and open more areas to leasing. Others still have doubts and want to ensure proper oversight in the wake of the disaster.

House Republicans last week held two hearings in the Natural Resources Committee that touched on the issue, and the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee is planning a meeting tomorrow that will address drilling safety in foreign waters.

One House hearing delved into a recently released federal report on the causes of the spill and featured tough questions for administration drilling safety officials as well as executives from BP PLC, Halliburton Co. and Transocean Ltd. Another focused on the effects of the administration's moratorium on deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, which was lifted one year ago this month.

These meetings come just weeks after the Interior Department finished a 15-month reorganization of its offshore drilling safety, permitting, leasing and revenue-collecting offices to address concerns that lax oversight by the former drilling regulatory agency contributed to the disaster.

Despite the reorganization of that agency into three separate safety, permitting and revenue offices and continuing assurances by the industry that drilling is safe, some Democrats are continuing to push for legislative action.

"The facts are in, and it is well past time for this committee and this Congress to enact comprehensive legislation to ensure that we prevent a similar disaster in the future," House Natural Resources Committee ranking member Ed Markey (D-Mass.) said last week during the hearing about a recent federal probe into last summer's disaster.

House Democrats last summer ushered a comprehensive drilling safety measure through the chamber. The legislation would have formally codified many of the organizational changes that Interior has undertaken in the past year and a half, among other provisions. But Senate efforts to follow suit stalled. Efforts to revive those talks in the Senate this year have faced political setbacks, and Republicans in the House have focused instead on encouraging more drilling to boost the economy and reduce the need for foreign oil imports.

But the Obama administration's top regulator, for one, says that is largely OK.

"The specific issues that our agency deals with in terms of being able to regulate the industry, we do think we have the power that we need," Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement Director Michael Bromwich said in response to a line of Republican questioning at last week's hearing. Bromwich did note, however, that organic legislation would support the new agencies and that a bill to raise Interior's civil penalty authority would be useful.

The agency last week issued citations to the three companies involved with the doomed Macondo well. The citations could lead to $21.5 million in fines for BP PLC, the owner of the well. But such a fine pales in comparison to the billions of dollars in penalties the company could face through other facets, like the Clean Water Act, and Bromwich said last week that the fines his agency can charge would cause the industry little worry.

"I don't think the current civil penalty authorization is a deterrent. I don't even think it's close," Bromwich said (Greenwire, Oct. 13).

Cuba's drilling plans

Looming over the domestic drilling debate are concerns about Cuba's plans to tap reserves buried off its shores -- and just 50 miles from Key West, Fla.

Cuba is working with Spanish company Repsol to begin drilling a well in those waters before the end of the year.

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are opposed to Cuba's plans for up to 16 wells with Repsol and worry about the consequences of drilling problems in waters just beyond the reach of U.S. regulators. The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will probe that issue at tomorrow's hearing.

Discussions at the hearing could also touch on Mexico's oil spill readiness and spill-response capabilities in Arctic waters as a handful of nations -- including Russia -- are clamoring to explore beneath the icy waters. But conversations will likely largely revolve around Cuba.

Bill Reilly, former U.S. EPA director in the George H.W. Bush administration and co-chairman of the presidential panel that made a series of recommendations earlier this year to improve offshore drilling safety and regulation after the oil spill, has been pushing hard to convince the United States' neighbors to adopt more stringent drilling safety regulations.

He said this summer that Mexican drilling regulators have agreed to beef up their regulatory structure. And he has made efforts to take his message to Havana and Moscow.

"I have been causing grief to the State Department," he said this summer (E&ENews PM, May 16). "That's something that's very important to us, I think, given that they're drilling 50 miles off Key West, so I've asked to be invited to Cuba to talk about the report."

Several lawmakers have proposed legislation that would penalize foreign companies for working with Cuba on its drilling schemes, but Reilly says such proposals are a bad idea.

"What you want is a company like Repsol, which has its own interest in the United States, has rigs in the Gulf, applies for permits from the United States government," Reilly said. "I don't know who we would get -- maybe [Venezuelan President Hugo] Chávez -- if it were so limited that we couldn't have a responsible company doing that drilling."

Schedule: The hearing is tomorrow at 10 a.m. in 366 Dirksen.

Witnesses: Michael Bromwich, director, Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement; Vice Adm. Brian Salerno, deputy commandant for operations, U.S. Coast Guard; Jorge Piñon, visiting research fellow, Latin American and Caribbean Center, Cuban Research Institute, Florida International University; Paul Schuler, president and CEO, Clean Caribbean and Americas; and Mark Myers, vice chancellor for research, University of Alaska, Fairbanks.