The Obama administration continued to shake up the agency that oversees oil and natural gas drilling, announcing a plan Wednesday to create separate offices to promote energy development and enforce safety.
The mission of the former Minerals Management Service to promote resource development, maximize revenue and enforce safety regulations had a built-in conflict, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said. "Those conflicts, combined with a chronic lack of resources, prevented the agency from fully meeting the challenges of overseeing industry operating in U.S. waters," Salazar said.
Shortly after the Deepwater Horizon disaster that led to a massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, Salazar indicated in May that he would split the MMS, which is now called the Bureau of Ocean Energy and Management, Regulation and Enforcement.
Wednesday's announcement remakes that agency into the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management , which will be in charge of the development of offshore energy, and the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, which will enforce safety regulation. More than a thousand employees from the former agency will be reassigned in the new structures, which are to start operating by Oct. 1. Revenue collection was moved last year to a separate office.
Salazar also announced plans for an advisory committee of academics and representatives from the oil and gas industry and non-governmental organizations that will recommend safety measures. The 13-member safety panel will be led by former Sandia National Laboratory director Thomas O. Hunter, a member of the scientific team that assisted with the capping of the oil-spewing well.
"We are moving forward with this reorganization that has been long in planning based on research," said Michael Bromwich, director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy and Management, Regulation and Enforcement.
The reorganization is being closely watched in Congress. Rep. Doc Hastings (R-Wash.), the House Natural Resources Committee chairman, said splitting MMS "must be more than a symbolic name-change."
With gasoline prices rising and families struggling to make ends meet, the new Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement "must carry out effective oversight of offshore drilling and also ensure that permits for new drilling are issued in a timely manner" without bogging down energy development in red tape, Hastings said.
Outside government, the changes drew cautious praise from some and condemnation from others.