Interviewer: Tyler Priest

Affiliation: University of Houston

Elmer “Bud” Danenberger III has a long and distinguished career as an offshore oil and gas expert in the U.S. Department of the Interior. Trained as an engineer at Pennsylvania State University, Danenberger took a job in 1971 with the now-defunct Conservation Division of the United States Geological Service. Danenberger played a key role during a busy period in which the Outer Continental Shelf program was opening frontier areas for leasing for the first time. Work included writing new regulatory orders, reviewing exploration and production plans, and performing inspections. At the time of his retirement in January 2010, Danenberger was the chief of offshore regulatory programs for the MMS. After the Deepwater Horizon incident in April 2010, Danenberger served as an expert and senior advisor to several of the resultant investigations into the oil spill, including the White House-chartered National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling.