The Interior Department’s offshore safety agency expressed concerns earlier this year about the prospect of moving offices in the New Orleans area — changes that now appear to be off the table.
Offices occupied by the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, or BSEE, appeared on a “lease termination list” in February, according to records obtained by POLITICO’s E&E News through a Freedom of Information Act request.
The “planned termination” date for leases at four addresses in the New Orleans area was Aug. 31 for two sites and Dec. 31 for the others, the spreadsheet showed. The document listed the Bureau of Minerals Management Service — a precursor to BSEE and its sister agency, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management — as the entity tied to those leases.
Experts cautioned that office changes could slow President Donald Trump’s push to expand domestic oil and gas production in the Gulf of Mexico, which he renamed the Gulf of America. But while Interior did not comment last week on whether the building leases in southeast Louisiana were still being targeted for termination, a local business official is not expecting closures or moves in the area.
