The Trump administration and the Department of Government Efficiency are shuttering two regional offices that oversee offshore energy development, including keeping tabs on the safety risks and environmental harms of oil and gas drilling off the United States coast.
The government is terminating leases for two regional offices — one in Camarillo, California, and another in New Orleans — that house employees from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement. These offices carry out parts of the federal government’s response procedure for oil spills and other offshore drilling incidents such as explosions, according to the bureaus’ websites.
The lease terminations come as part of the Department of Government Efficiency’s effort to cut government spending across almost every government agency, which has led to the impending closures of offices that handle key safety functions, including food safety and active volcano observation. While the government says other government bodies will handle some of the regional offices’ work, their closure could cut out a key point of contact for almost all of the country’s offshore oil and gas production.