The Trump administration said Thursday it would roll back several major regulations meant to safeguard offshore drilling rigs, ending a bevy of safety measures put in place after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill that spewed 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. The plan will also end mandatory reporting of some of those tests to the Interior Department. “Today’s final rule puts safety first, both public and environmental safety, in a common sense way,” newly confirmed Interior Secretary David Bernhard said in a statement Thursday. They will go into effect 60 days after they are published in the Federal Register, which should happen within the next week, according to The New York Times. “If the Trump administration’s final rule weakens these protections, as its proposed changes did, it will put our workers, waters and wildlife at needless risk.

Source: Huffington Post May 03, 2019 04:18 UTC