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Salazar divvies up MMS
WASHINGTON, (UPI) -- U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar took steps Wednesday to restructure the Mineral Management Service, the agency charged with overseeing offshore drilling.
Salazar signed an order splitting the agency, which has come under criticism and scrutiny following the Deepwater Horizon oil rig disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, into three separate entities with independent missions.
"The Minerals Management Service has three distinct and conflicting missions that -- for the benefit of effective enforcement, energy development, and revenue collection -- must be divided," Salazar said in a statement on the department's Web site. "The reorganization I am ordering today is the next step in our reform agenda and will enable us to carry out these three separate and equally important missions with greater effectiveness and transparency.
"These reforms will strengthen oversight of offshore energy operations, improve the structure for revenue and royalty collections on behalf of the American people, and help our country build the clean energy future we need."
The MMS will be broken up into a Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, a Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement and an Office of Natural Resources Revenue.
"The employees of the MMS deserve an organizational structure that fits the missions they are asked to carry out," Salazar said. "With this restructuring, we will bring greater clarity to the roles and responsibilities of the department while strengthening oversight of the companies that develop energy in our nation's waters."
WASHINGTON, (UPI) -- U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar took steps Wednesday to restructure the Mineral Management Service, the agency charged with overseeing offshore drilling.
Salazar signed an order splitting the agency, which has come under criticism and scrutiny following the Deepwater Horizon oil rig disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, into three separate entities with independent missions.
"The Minerals Management Service has three distinct and conflicting missions that -- for the benefit of effective enforcement, energy development, and revenue collection -- must be divided," Salazar said in a statement on the department's Web site. "The reorganization I am ordering today is the next step in our reform agenda and will enable us to carry out these three separate and equally important missions with greater effectiveness and transparency.
"These reforms will strengthen oversight of offshore energy operations, improve the structure for revenue and royalty collections on behalf of the American people, and help our country build the clean energy future we need."
The MMS will be broken up into a Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, a Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement and an Office of Natural Resources Revenue.
"The employees of the MMS deserve an organizational structure that fits the missions they are asked to carry out," Salazar said. "With this restructuring, we will bring greater clarity to the roles and responsibilities of the department while strengthening oversight of the companies that develop energy in our nation's waters."
