On this issue, I agree with Ken Salazar.
The Obama administration is proposing to split up an Interior Department agency that oversees offshore drilling, as part of its response to the Gulf Coast oil spill.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar called for a plan to split the Minerals Management Service in two. One agency would be charged with inspecting oil rigs, investigating oil companies and enforcing safety regulations, while the other would oversee leases for drilling and collection of billions of dollars in royalties. That would separate the agency’s two core responsibilities, which critics say are diametrically opposed — making money off the industry, while also cracking down on it in ways that may affect the industry’s bottom line.
"The tragedy aboard the Deepwater Horizon and the massive spill for which BP is responsible has made the importance and urgency of our reform agenda even clearer," Salazar said. Salazar said he was making the changes "so there is no conflict, real or perceived, with respect to those functions."
He said the administration has been aggressive in its response to the Gulf Coast spill, "but we must also aggressively expand the activities, resources and independence of federal inspectors so they can ensure that offshore oil and gas operations are following the law, protecting their workers, and guarding against the type of disaster that happened on the Deepwater Horizon."
The Minerals Management Service, an arm of the Interior Department, oversees the nation’s natural gas, oil and other mineral resources. The agency collects and distributes more than $13 billion per year in revenues from federal leases for offshore and onshore drilling. It also enforces laws and regulations that apply to drilling operations.
Some critics have said the two roles are in conflict and are one reason the agency has long been accused of being too cozy with the oil and natural gas industry. There is growing bipartisan sentiment in Congress in favor of toughening oversight of MMS. At a minimum, lawmakers want to ensure that the agency’s director is a Senate-confirmed position…
Inserted from <The Bay Ledger>
Since Cheney gutted the MMS and staffed it with his own cronies, the MMS has virtually ceased to function as a regulatory agency. These is the same agency whose personnel were attending orgies with industry supplied prostitutes in Denver. To say that the regulators are in bed with the companies they regulate is an understatement. Not only does this agency need to be split up, but also, the GOP moles (political appointees who transferred to permanent nonpartisan positions) need to be flushed.
6 Responses to “Split the MMS”
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There was an amazing vid over at Parsely’s Pics that showed two men dumping hay on an oil stick. The results were amazing. (Sorry to blogwhore on your blog TC, but it’s not my blog and it is on your blogroll.) Go watch it.
Lisa, that’s not being a blog whore. On occasion I refer to my on articles on other blogs, and other bloggers do here. We’re in this together. A blog whore os one who promotes their own blogs on other blogs without joining the discussion. If it were your blog, since you comment here regularly, I’d have no problem. If you left a link, I would edit it to make it open in a new window, so folks could go there without leaving here.
“These is the same agency whose personnel were attending orgies with industry supplied prostitutes in Denver.”
You’re kidding … right? Oh my goodness, this makes me sick.
But why did they have to wait until there was a tragedy before they fixed the Minerals Management Service? I wish governments would start being more pro-active about these things.
Josie, while Bush was still in power, thousands of political appiontees (extremist ideologues and possibly saboteurs) “burrowed in”. They applied for career (nonpartisan) positions that do not end when the administration changes as political appointee positions do, and the Bush Regime approved the changes. In the past, appointees who were nonpartissan have appried for career positions and gotten them, bit never before has a new President taken office with thousands of enemy partisans in nonpartisan positions. There are currently 19,734,000 federal employees, excluding the military. I think that between the GOP Bankster crisis, the GOP Energy crisis, The GOP Jobs crisis, the GOP Immigration crisis, The GOP Healthcare crisis, Global climate change and two GOP-started wars, the Obama administration has not had time to identify and root out the “moles”.
The orgies occurred on the Bush/GOP watch.
Gawd, I love that little blue face with the bull-dog tooth. 🙂 It’s JUST what I look like at 7:00 in the morning. *heh*
Naw… That face is too blonde. 😉