May 8, 2013 at 4:56 pm
When Interior Secretary Sally Jewell worked in the oil patch three decades ago, she was a pioneer who put up with a nearly all-male work force and Hustler pin-ups at drill sites.
“As a woman working in the energy industry myself,” Jewell recalled Wednesday, “you had to have a pretty thick skin, because there weren’t a lot of people that were like you or that you appeared to connect with.”
Fast forward 32 years. While overt sexism may have left the oilfield, there still aren’t a lot of women in it. Ditto for people of color, Jewell observed.
“The population of our country is far more diverse than this industry as a whole, so I think the industry has some work to do,” Jewell said on the sidelines of the Offshore Technology Conference. Her assessment was driven partly by a quick tour of the showroom floor, a visit to an offshore oil rig and production facility last week and recent talks with workers from the Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy and Management and the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement.
“I don’t see the level of diversity that reflects the U.S. population in this industry,” Jewell said. “I didn’t when I worked in it before and I don’t when I walk around the floor here, and I didn’t when I was on a rig and I don’t when I go to the BOEM and BSEE folks . . . in New Orleans.”……To Read More……
My Take - This is what happens when priorities are all out of whack with what are supposed to be their actual responsibilities. Solution? Eliminate the Department of the Interior, and all their agencies, and turn all federal lands over to the states, including responsibilities for drilling off their shores and any other duties for which the Interior Department was responsible. Then leave them to decide which duties need to be continued.
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