The National Research Council (NRC) will establish a standing committee to provide ongoing assistance to the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) in its efforts to manage development of the nation’s offshore energy resources in an environmentally and economically responsible way. The committee will meet regularly to:

• convene experts from academia, industry, and other organizations to provide independent, technical input on issues of interest to BOEM’s environmental studies and assessment programs, and potentially other programs;
• facilitate stakeholder discussions of controversial issues;
• enhance the understanding of developments in related fields of science and technology, and if warranted, draft proposals for potential NRC studies on specific topics;
• provide a venue for BOEM staff to meet and exchange information with staff from other federal agencies and help BOEM define its unique role in the interagency process; and
• facilitate the exchange of information and lessons learned with staff from other world class applied environmental studies and assessment programs with a view to assisting BOEM in being the best in such programs.

Meeting topics will be chosen in consultation with BOEM staff, based on input from BOEM and other stakeholders. Highlights of the meetings will be captured by NRC staff in the form of informal meeting recaps.

In addition to the regular meetings described above, committee discussions with BOEM may lead to NRC workshops or studies on specific topics, which will be subject to separate approval by the NRC’s Governing Board Executive Committee, and possibly the attendance of individual committee members at annual environmental study program reviews by BOEM’s Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) Scientific Committee. It is envisioned that future NRC studies associated with the work of this standing committee may include periodic comprehensive reviews of BOEM’s programs, focused studies to address specific questions of interest to BOEM, and peer reviews of draft BOEM documents.