The daily business briefing: December 26, 2017

The Trump administration proposes dropping some offshore drilling rules, holiday sales rise, and more

The Deepwater Horizon explosion in 2010
(Image credit: U.S. Coast Guard via Getty Images)

1. Trump administration proposes scrapping post-spill offshore drilling rules

The Trump administration is proposing rolling back Obama-era offshore-drilling safety rules imposed after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday. The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, which regulates offshore oil and gas drilling, says the plan would save the oil industry more than $900 million over the next decade. The changes reportedly include easing rules that require oil production facilities to stream real-time data onshore, where regulators can currently access it, and scrapping a rule that only BSEE-certified inspectors monitor critical equipment like the blowout preventer that malfunctioned in the Deepwater Horizon explosion, which killed 11 people and triggered the worst oil spill in U.S. history.

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Harold Maass, The Week US

Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.