Oil Spill Commission Issues Report

From the NYT:

The presidential panel investigating the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico recommended on Tuesday that Congress approve substantial new spending and sweeping new regulations for offshore oil operations at a time when the appetite for both is low.

Releasing its final report, the commission found that the Deepwater Horizon explosion and subsequent oil spill arose from a preventable series of corporate and regulatory failures. It warned that unless industry practices and government regulation improved, another such accident was inevitable.

“If dramatic steps are not taken,” said Bob Graham, a former Democratic senator from Florida and a co-chairman of the commission, “I’m afraid at some point in the coming years another failure will occur, and we will wonder why did the Congress, why did the administration, why did the industry allow this to happen again.”

- Wikipedia: Oil Commission
- The Report

Don't Blame the MMS for the Oil Spill

Blame Congress.

More on the MMS

They apparently allowed drilling in the gulf before required permits were obtained.

Obama calls the relationship between MMS and the Oil Industry "cozy."

Most of the oil spill seems to be hugging the gulf floor.

MMS to be Split in Two

The much maligned Minerals Management Service is about to be split in two. The part that collects royalties is to be split from the part that actually regulates wells for safety violations. The solution to many bureaucratic problems seems to be a redesign of the institutions at issue. Here's an example.

MMS: A Captured Agency?

More evidence that the Minerals Management Service was captured by the oil industry.

Agency records show that from 2001 to 2007, there were 1,443 serious drilling accidents in offshore operations, leading to 41 deaths, 302 injuries and 356 oil spills. Yet the federal agency continues to allow the oil industry largely to police itself, saying that the best technical experts work for industry, not for the government.

Critics say that, then and now, the minerals service has been crippled by this dependence on industry and by a climate of regulatory indulgence.

Does the Oil Lobby Own Government Regulators?

Perhaps.

An Off Shore Drilling Iron Triangle?

William Galston seems to think such a thing might lie at the root of the ongoing Gulf oil spill. He highlight changes in the Minerals Management Service (a division of the Interior Department) during the early years of the Bush Administration which made the institution more oil friendly, and less likely to aggressivley inspect off shore oil wells.

Congressional Oversight: I'm in the Wrong Line of Work

For my 2302's getting comfortable with the concept of congressional oversight, there's this little tidbit:

As Congress prepares to debate expansion of drilling in taxpayer-owned coastal waters, the Interior Department agency that collects oil and gas royalties has been caught up in a wide-ranging ethics scandal — including allegations of financial self-dealing, accepting gifts from energy companies, cocaine use and sexual misconduct.

...

Two other reports focus on “a culture of substance abuse and promiscuity” in the service’s royalty-in-kind program. That part of the agency collects about $4 billion a year in oil and gas rather than cash royalties.

Based in suburban Denver and modeled to operate like a private sector energy company, the decade-old royalty-in-kind program sells oil and gas on the open market. Its employees are subject to government ethics rules, such as restrictions on taking gifts from people and companies with whom they conduct official business.

One of the reports says that the officials viewed themselves as exempt from those limits, indulging themselves in the expense-account-fueled world of oil and gas executives.

The reports provoked immediate outrage in Congress. Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat who is chairman of the Public Lands and Forests Subcommittee, accused the Minerals Management Service on the Senate floor Wednesday of “a pattern of abuses and mismanagement” that is costing taxpayers billions.

As said above, the oversight is being conducted by the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee's Subcommittee on Public Lands and Forests.

Here is a link to relevant agency: the Mineral Management Service. Here's the wikipedia entry.