Yesterday, Brian Salerno, Director of the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE), spoke at a joint meeting of the Gas Pipeline Advisory Committee and the Liquid Pipeline Advisory Committee. Both groups serve as federal advisory committees to the Department of Transportation on pipeline safety issues. Director Salerno was joined by committee members from government, industry, and pipeline safety stakeholder groups.
Director Salerno spoke to the group about the evolution of safety management systems for offshore oil and gas operations, as well as the need for interagency collaboration. He emphasized the benefits of a risk management approach to regulating industry, predicated on the idea that companies have to take the responsibility for creating a culture of safety.
“If we create a safety management system, whereby companies take ownership of the risks, identify vulnerabilities and actively manage them, where employees are empowered to act on behalf of safety and rewarded for doing so, in short, where a real safety culture exists,” said Director Salerno, “we can collectively avoid the kinds of things that none of us want to see.”
During his presentation, Director Salerno detailed the move to a risk-based approach to safety management systems, one that shifts the burden of responsibility to industry and is performance based, as opposed to a prescriptive checklist approach. He highlighted the Safety Culture Policy and SEMS II rule as examples of BSEE's approach to ensuring safe operations.
Director Salerno also addressed the need for multiple regulators to adopt compatible approaches, especially for industries that interact with multiple regulatory regimes. He spoke about the coordination between BSEE and the U.S. Coast Guard, as well as the Department of Transportation, as examples of regulatory agencies working together on the Outer Continental Shelf.
More information about the meeting, including the agenda can be found here.