Page 22: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (April 2023)

INTERVIEW KEVIN SLIGH SR., DIRECTOR, BSEE

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Interview: Kevin Sligh Sr.,

Director, BSEE

After his ? rst year on the job, Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement t (BSEE) Director Kevin Sligh Sr. discusses the myriad challenges and d opportunities ahead for offshore energy development. While the Bureau of Ocean and Energy Management (BOEM) handles the leasing side and permitting side, BSEE now owns the engineering reviews. With a sharp focus on safety, enforcement and compliance on the Outer

Continental Shelf (OCS), Sligh and his team eye the challenges and opportunities in building out offshore wind to the targeted 30GW of offshore wind power by 2030 and another 15GW from ? oating wind by 2035.

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How do you see the 8S offshore energy production ? oating offshore wind. We are learning as fast, and while I changing, and what are some of the key safety and envi- don’t want to say we’re building an airplane while we’re ? y- ronmental concerns from the BSEE’S perspective? ing, we’re close to it, and we are exceeding our expectations

The ? rst few [Offshore Wind] projects’ Construction Opera- on these ? rst few projects.

tion Plan (COP) were approved by BOEM years ago, and we’re starting to look at those engineering reports. The COP What challenge does BSEE’s responsibilities on offshore is the envelope of what could be built from a turbine and wind bring to the organi]ation, and how is regulating electrical substation facility off the coast. And now we’re offshore wind energy different compared to your usual getting into what they really want to put on the OCS, as work in the offshore oil and gas sector?

in a few years technology changes, from the monopiles to While we are the lead for safety and environmental enforce- the supporting beam to the blade sizes. Now we’re taking a ment and compliance, BOEM is responsible for the leasing harder look to make sure that the plans are sound and struc- and the NEPA [National Environmental Policy Act] work turally safe before we give a no objection. We are commit- that goes on. So in conjunction, we are both leads; we just ted to this administration’s 30 by ‘30, which is 30GW (of have our respective lanes. Now that the split has occurred, offshore wind power) by 2030, and then 15GW by 2035 for we are coordinating reviews. Those FDR [Facility Design 22 Maritime Reporter & Engineering News • April 2023

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