U.S. Regulatory Regimes and Offshore Energy Production

This paper shows that offshore wind is an emerging key resource that should comprise a greater portion of our national energy fuel mix. Energy security, as a new process of security to our economic and military might in the modern world, has become an intrinsic issue of national security. This paradigm is constrained by the knowledge and experience regarding the harmful effects of producing energy. The harm not only to human health and safety, but also to substantive sections of the respective environment and ecology that is geographically situated in proximity to extraction or production locations.

Perhaps the most relevant representation of the potential for harm to human health, safety, and environmental impact is shown through the avoidable 2010 offshore Macondo disaster otherwise known as the Deepwater Horizon. Environmentalists and environmental agencies have worked tirelessly to achieve an effective environmental regime in the United States. Their efforts have paid dividends with regard to lowering incidents and setting guidelines for maximum dioxide levels in producing energy. Given the recent political shifts in the U.S. that now threaten these advances, this paper responds to this dynamic and engages in a scholarly review and commentary on existing policy.