In any case Sec. Salazar made the case for the statutory break up and restructuring of the functions of the Mineral Management Service. This is critical in that the MMS has been in existence by Executive Order since it was formed in 1982, and it collects on average over 13 billion in revenue from oil leases annually.
It is easy to see how an agency which not only has conflicting goals (leasing and safety v. development and revenue) could become corrupted. When you add in the fact that it's structure is not mandated by law, but rather determined by Executive Order the chance that it would be captured by the industry it was supposed to regulate becomes a near certainty.
The plan that the Secretary is proposing would move the revenue collection portion of MMS responsibilities to a completely different section of the Department of Interior, under the hopefully more watchful and prudent eye of the Under-Secretary for Policy and Budget. The leasing would be its own department called the Ocean Energy Management Service which would have responsibility for development of wind as well as gas and oil.
The final agency would be the Bureau of Safety and Enforcement. This Bureau would have as its sole charge the inspection of rigs and the enforcement of the regulations created at the OEMS. This would put breaks in place that would, at the very least slow down the capture of these new entities by the oil industry.
There were questions of what the best method to assure this structure would actually help to prevent the kinds of abuses that we have seen and the disasters they lead to. One of the things that came out in the questioning was the fact that while Congress has consistently failed to provide a rational structure to MMS they have not been hands off. Under questioning from Rep. Grijalva (D-AZ) it came out that one of the problems with getting a full understanding of the environmental impacts of a particular proposal is the requirement from Congress that all applications be decided in 30 days.
This industry friendly bit of legislation basically guarantees that there will be a bias towards just accepting what the oil company is telling the MMS instead of finding out for themselves. Secretary Salazar said several times that changing that rush to approve must be part of the restructuring and that it is Congresses responsibility to write that legislation.
Of course there is no situation so serious that Republicans will not try to advance their agenda on it. Rep. Cynthia Lummis (R- WY) made a point of saying that the Secretary should ask for all the tools he needed to make the new agency structure work, then went on to suggest that there be an exemption from the Civil Service rules similar to the one Republicans pushed on the Department of Homeland Security. This is not an effort to make the agency more effective but to break the Federal Employees Unions.
Sec. Salazar showed his dodgballs skills here by thanking the Representative and saying that the Administration would ask for what it wanted, but pointedly leaving out any mention of changing the Civil Service rules.
When pressed by various Democratic Representatives to say whether the Obama Administration would reconsider its pledge to continue development of off-shore energy the Secretary dipped and dived, mostly conflating the fact that 30% of our domestic production comes from the Gulf with the idea that this number represents our consumption. He kept brining up the straw-man of shutting down all production instead of answering questions about should we put an end to further exploration This is important since the BP Oil Disaster is not a production issue but an exploration one. All of the deep water wells are new ones and many of the newly proposed wells are in water over 5,000 feet deep.
Rep. Sarbanes (D-MD) asked quite directly if the current disaster would make the Administration reconsider a proposed lease called the Virginia Parcel. It is 50 miles off the cost of Chesapeake Bay. He also asked if this isn't the time to, for certain important areas like Chesapeake Bay, it isn't time to set presumptions that there will be no drilling. This is not to say that they could not be overruled with extensive and compelling evidence of safety and mitigation, but that the presumption would be against development instead of for it.
Again the wily Secretary ducked the direct question about the Virginia Parcel and talked about the termination of the Bristol Bay leases in Alaska. While not drilling there is important it did not give the Representative anything to hang onto in regards the lease that will impact his district. Nor did it answer the question about setting new presumptions.
In the end the Secretary was saved by the bell, as BP announced it was ready to try the top kill procedure and he wanted to monitor this issue. This left Under Secretary David Hayes in the hot seat for the rest of the panels time. Before he left though he was given a bit of an admonishment by the Ranking Member Rep. Doc Hastings, who reminded him that the Committee would have questions they wanted answered in writing and that he had failed to do so at his last appearance.
It is hardly surprising that many people are unhappy with this Secretaries behavior. He is more than a little bit of a cold fish and has not really taken the kind of tone that people would want form someone tasked with cleaning up a corrupt agency. While he has ordered the IG to investigate the actions of the MMS from Jan. 20 2009 forward, he really does not exude that moral indignation that one would expect. He also is clearly there to hold the Administration line on future development of the OCS, which in light of the fact that a recent poll showed only 27% of the people support further development is not going to be a popular one.
I tend to think that Sec. Salazar's days are numbered. Just like with DNI Mullen there is only so much failure and incompetence that any administration can allow before it has to suggest that someone spend more time with their family. If the top kill procedure does not work or the governments estimate of the flow rate is not forthcoming, expect the one time Senator from Colorado to be back in the Centennial State in short order.
Later this afternoon the IG will be testifying about her report on the MMS, I'll be watching that one and posting about it too.
The floor is yours.
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