In addition to their lack of oversight remains a troubling realization, which came to light during the oil spill saga — the MMS had become nothing short of a disaster internally. The agency was rife with drug abuse, sexual misconduct, and mismanagement when President Obama took office and as he notes in his latest interview with Rolling Stone, he put Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar on the task of cleaning up the agency even before the spill occurred. Needless to say, the clean up — of the agency, or the spill — didn’t happen as quickly as needed and now we know for sure that MMS and BP are to blame. Let’s hope the new Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement keeps the sex, drugs and rock and roll out of managing our precious coastal waters in the future. They’re currently on the task of creating new regulations and fines that will hopefully prevent these problems in the future.
[...] prevailing theme this last year, especially in the wake of multiple natural disasters that involved polluting our oceans, flooding and access to clean water. Not only is it the stuff that makes the world go round, but [...]
I think it’s more that enforcement hasn’t happened rather than more regulation is needed. The government office in charge of monitoring offshore drilling was doing nothing even though they knew the oil rigs were/are non compliant. Hopefully now that the department that receives funds/fees from oil companies is now separated from the department that enforces regulation, we will see less of the turn your back attitude we have seen in the past.
It sounds good in theory but in the real world it does\’nt happen that way. If someone can find that they can skirt around regulations and bring a project in cheaper then the regulations get tossed.
It sounds good in theory but in the real world it does\’nt happen that way. If someone can find that they can skirt around regulations and bring a project in cheaper then the regulations get tossed.