Today in Washington, D.C. - May 18, 2010 - Questions Increase About Obama Admin Drilling Oversight and Recovery Failures

Senate will resume consideration of S. 3217, the Dodd financial regulation bill. Today, they will vote on an amendment from Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH) which would prevent federal bailouts of state and local governments at risk of default. Yesterday, the Senate voted 94-0 for an amendment from Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) to require that the U.S. representative at the IMF vote against any bailouts to a country that are not likely to be repaid. They also  rejected an amendment from Sen. Mike Crapo (R-ID) which would have capped the amount of Treasury funds Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac can receive.

The New York Times reports today, “The White House . . . said late Monday that President Obama would soon name an independent commission to investigate the cause of the [Gulf of Mexico oil] spill and the response to it, largely supplanting the inquiry now being conducted by the United States Coast Guard and the Minerals Management Service, the Interior Department agency responsible for overseeing offshore oil operations. The role of both agencies in approving the drilling, preparing for an accident and supervising the cleanup are part of any overall inquiry and have raised questions about the independence of their work.”

Yet based on the bulk of news coverage and reactions from Democrats one might not get the idea that there are serious questions about the federal government’s oversight of offshore oil drilling in the wake of the disaster at the BP rig in the Gulf. There’s been a great deal of focus on the companies involved in the incident: BP, Transocean, and Halliburton. And that’s proper. However, a number of issues have arisen about the government’s role in this incident.

Appearing before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee this morning, “Interior Secretary Ken Salazar concede[d] the government failed to hold the oil industry accountable and ensure safety in offshore oil drilling,” the AP reports today.

The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday, “The top federal official who led regulation of offshore oil drilling at the Minerals Management Service will retire at the end of the month, according to people familiar with the situation. The departure of Chris Oynes, associate director for offshore energy and minerals management at the MMS, comes as the agency faces growing criticism from Congress and the White House following last month's deadly explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig.”

And last night, CNN’s Gloria Borger pointed out, “I think it’s an administration that knows … that it’s got huge regulatory failures on its hand that it has to examine. It’s got CEOs pointing fingers at each other. But if this administration wants to continue its policy of offshore drilling, which of course they’ve temporarily suspended, they have to get some answers to these questions about what went wrong in order to assure the American public that it won't happen again. And they know that they have made mistakes in regulation and they've got to fix those mistakes before they can drill.” John King added, “And it raises the stakes for them, though, because you mentioned those mistakes. When they lay out that permits are being issued for these rigs out there even though they don't have the environmental permits required by federal law, not suggested by federal law, required by federal law, and yet agencies in the government—and they've been in power for 16 months--saying go ahead.”

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said on Sunday's Meet the Press, “This is an environmental disaster of gargantuan proportions” and stopping the leak and cleaning up the spill must be the first priority. However, “We're also interested to know what the administration did. Was the Mineral Management Service a part of this administration that approved this site? It also approved this spill response plan. What kind of oversight did the administration provide during the course of the drilling? There are plenty of questions that need to be answered.”

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