Former U.S. Department of the Interior official Tommy Beaudreau in Conversation with Mark Templeton

During Tommy Beaudreau’s six and a half years serving in the U.S. Department of the Interior under President Obama, the administration made a host of changes—from new safety requirements and structural reforms after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill to a moratorium on new coal leasing to the approval of America’s first offshore wind project. Many of these changes have, or are in the process of, being rolled back by the Trump administration as they move to make it easier to drill on federal land. Just this month, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke proposed opening up a vast amount of offshore land to oil drilling.

Beaudreau, who served as the chief of staff of Interior after becoming the first-ever director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, discussed these policy changes and offered an insider’s perspective on the inner workings of Interior at an EPIC event on January 24. The conversation was moderated by Mark Templeton, director of the Abrams Environmental Law Clinic at UChicago Law School.