That involves a parallel process, where the NSTA assesses a project’s development plan while OPRED judges its environmental statement.
The NSTA can’t sign off the development plan or grant drilling consent, though, until OPRED has completed its assessment. During the OPRED process, the environmental statement has to be signed off by DESNZ, effectively giving Miliband a mechanism to overrule the regulator’s recommendations.
That would give Miliband “in theory … lots of discretion to override regulator decision-making,” said Martin Copeland, chief financial officer at Serica Energy, one of the country’s largest oil and gas companies.
Paul de Leeuw, an energy expert at Aberdeen’s Robert Gordon University, called the guidance “pragmatic” and “timely,” adding it provides “the secretary of state with the powers to make a balanced and informed decision, reflecting a wide range of considerations.”
A second senior oil and gas industry figure — who has held talks with all major parties including the government and was granted anonymity to discuss sensitive lobbying — said they sensed “a split in government along the lines of environment and economic growth.”
There are fresh political pressures on Miliband just as these new powers take effect, the same person said.
“I think there has been winds of change blowing through Westminster in recent months. I think that’s due to a number of reasons. Obviously, the ‘Trump effect’ [backing aggressive fossil fuel drilling in the U.S.] is having a significant impact and it’s galvanizing the right. It’s galvanizing Reform and it’s galvanizing the Tories.”