U.S. offshore regulatory agency met with industry for 98 hours, with NGOs for 2

The Trump administration has been caught playing favorites again: According to the watchdog group Documented, Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) director Scott Angelle spent more than 98 hours with representatives of the oil and gas industry since last May—and less than two hours with environmental advocates and NGOs in the same time frame. We have a guess as to why: Companies that met with Angelle contributed more than $88,000 to his failed bids to run for office in the 2012 and 2016 campaigns. The BSEE meetings came with real policy consequences. For example, eight days after Angelle sat down with Italian oil company Eni in a meeting titled “Re: SEMS, Alaska Region,” he approved a permit for the company to start exploring for fossil fuels in the Arctic. The news is just the latest example of the administration’s pro-industry priorities and comes in the midst of a heated debate over opening up nearly all of the nation's coastlines to offshore drilling.