OCS Safety Board Report Next Steps on Reforms
Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar announced that a team led by senior officials in the Department of the Interior, including Interior’s Inspector General, have completed a review of offshore oil and gas oversight and regulation and have delivered a set of recommendations that reinforce and expand on ongoing reforms being carried out by Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement (BOEMRE) Director Michael R. Bromwich. The report of the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) Safety Oversight Board, which Secretary Salazar established immediately following the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig, provides recommendations to strengthen permitting, inspections, enforcement and environmental stewardship.
Inspector General Faults MMS Investigation of Oil Spill
According to a report from The Wall Street Journal, the U.S. agency in charge of regulating offshore oil drilling is carrying out its investigation of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill in a "completely backwards" manner, and lacks sufficient guidelines and inspectors to police the industry's operations in the Gulf, the acting inspector general of the U.S. Interior Department is expected to tell a congressional panel Thursday, June 17. U.S. officials should also consider setting new ethics rules aimed at limiting the influence of oil and gas industry representatives over regulators, according to remarks prepared for delivery by Mary L. Kendall, the acting inspector general of Interior. (Source: The Wall Street Journal)
