The Trump administration plans to rejoin the two federal agencies that have regulated US offshore oil and gas drilling separately since the restructuring that followed the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the Associated Press reported.

The move would fold back together the agencies created in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, which killed 11 workers and spilled millions of barrels into the Gulf over 87 days in 2010. In the aftermath, the Obama administration split the former Minerals Management Service into separate bodies — one handling offshore leasing and energy development, the other handling safety and environmental enforcement.

That division was designed to remove what regulators and lawmakers at the time saw as a structural conflict of interest: a single agency collecting royalty revenue from the industry it was also charged with policing.

What does reunification change?

For operators in the Gulf of Mexico — still the cornerstone of US offshore production — the practical question is whether a single merged regulator simplifies permitting, inspections and plan approvals, or reopens the governance questions that drove the 2010 split.

The AP report does not specify a timeline for the reorganization, the name of the combined agency, or whether Congress must act to complete it. Interior Department reorganizations have historically proceeded in some cases through administrative order alone.

Industry groups have long argued that the dual-agency structure created duplicated paperwork and slower approvals for exploration plans and development operations coordinating documents. Critics of reunification, including safety advocates who backed the post-Macondo reforms, have countered that consolidating revenue collection and safety enforcement in one shop rebuilds the conflict the split was meant to eliminate.

Why the 2010 split happened

The Deepwater Horizon blowout on April 20, 2010, and the resulting spill exposed failures in how the Minerals Management Service supervised drilling, well design oversight and environmental review. Congressional investigators and the presidential commission that examined the disaster pointed to the agency's dual mandate as a contributing factor.

The restructuring that followed produced today's two-agency framework, which has governed every Gulf lease sale, seismic permitting cycle and platform inspection since.

What to watch

The watch items are concrete: the formal reorganization order or rulemaking that effects the merger, the fate of existing permitting pipelines for operators with plans now under review, and any staffing or budget changes at the safety-enforcement arm. Producers with deepwater developments in the Gulf will be watching whether approval timelines shorten — or whether the change draws litigation from safety and environmental groups seeking to preserve the post-2010 structure.