Deepwater Horizon Catastrophe and Restructuring
On May 11, 2010, in response to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar announced that MMS would be restructured so that the safety and environmental functions are carried out by a unit with full independence from MMS in order to ensure that federal inspectors will have more tools, resources, and greater authority to enforce laws and regulations that apply to oil and gas companies operating on the Outer Continental Shelf. Another outcome of the spill was the retirement of the associate director for offshore energy and minerals management at the time of the spill, Chris Oynes.
MMS's regulatory decisions contributing to the 2010 oil spill included, in negligence, the decision that an acoustically controlled shut-off valve (BOP) would not be required as a last resort against underwater spills at the site, MMS's failure to suggest other “fail-safe” mechanisms after a 2004 report raised questions about the reliability of the electrical remote-control devices., and the fact that MMS gave permission to BP and dozens of other oil companies to drill in the Gulf of Mexico without first getting required permits from the (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that assess threats to endangered species and to assess the impact the drilling was likely to have on the gulf.
On May 19, 2010 Salazar announced that MMS will be broken up into three separate divisions, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, and the Office of Natural Resources Revenue, which will separately oversee energy leasing, safety enforcement, and revenue collection.
S. Elizabeth (Liz) Birnbaum served as the Director of the then named Minerals Management Service from July 15, 2009 to her resignation on May 27, 2010 amidst the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. On June 15, 2010 President Obama named Michael R. Bromwich, a former federal prosecutor and inspector general for the Justice Department, to head up efforts to restructure BOEMRE. Bob Abbey, then director of the Bureau of Land Management, took over as Acting Director of BOEMRE until his replacement could be confirmed. Amidst efforts to reorganize the bleagured agency, on June 21, 2010, Bromwich was sworn in as BOEMRE's new director, and Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar issued a Secretarial Order that renamed the Minerals Management Service the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement. Almost a year later, William K. Reilly, who co-chaired the commission charged with investigating the Horizon blowout, was quoted as saying "they changed the name, but all the people are the same" and "it’s embarrassing" in reference to the current situation.
Read more about this topic: Bureau Of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation And Enforcement, Criticism and Controversies
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