Congress wants to know why MMS aborted tougher drilling rules

[babylonsister]

Congress wants to know why MMS aborted tougher drilling rules


By Erika Bolstad, Lesley Clark and Dan Chang
McClatchy Newspapers


WASHINGTON — Engineers launched their latest effort to curb the crude oil gushing from a busted underwater well in the Gulf of Mexico Thursday as lawmakers on Capitol Hill wrangled over the liability limits for oil companies and continued to probe the mishaps and regulatory failures that caused the mammoth spill.

The Interior Department's Minerals Management Service, which regulates oilrigs, came under more scrutiny as congressional investigators scheduled hearings to find out why the federal agency never completed rules that would have required additional controls on blowout preventers — the safety equipment that failed to stop the spill.

Staffers from the House of Representatives Natural Resources Committee, who traveled to Louisiana this week to sit in on the U.S. Coast Guard-led inquiry into the April 20 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil drilling rig, said they learned from the testimony of Mike Saucier, an MMS regional supervisor for field operations, that new rules had been proposed.

Saucier said the agency prepared but never completed regulations in 2001, the first year of George W. Bush's presidency, that would have required secondary control systems for blowout preventers.

"As far as I know, they're still at headquarters," Saucier said.



more...

http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/05/13/1628453/congress-wants-to-know-why-mms.html

[tanyev]

1. Too busy sleeping with the enemy.

Literally.

[madokie]

2. And the dick is in hiding

what a scum bag that cretin is. Not sure 'cretin' is the right word, maybe traitor is a better fit, I don't know.

[hootinholler]

7. Um wasn't MMS the agency that

Was felating the oil industry? I mean literally.

-Hoot

[madokie]

9. Very possibly under the dicks direction though

he is an evil man and all.

[hootinholler]

12. A distinct possibility. n/t

[babylonsister]

10. Why yes it was, here:

Report Says Oil Agency Ran Amok
Interior Dept. Inquiry Finds Sex, Corruption

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/10/AR2008091001829.html

[hootinholler]

11. I thought so...

Why thank you Sis for that link!

-Hoot

[tavalon]

3. Uh, huh, sure you do, Congress

I'm feeling it now. There are going to be so many investigations about these investigations and there will be very sternly written letters and subpoenas, lots and lots of subpoenas. And heads will roll or at least they'll look like they're rolling but that's movie magic for you.

I've seen this movie before.

[formercia]

4. A lot of eyes will roll.

..and that's about it.

[Scuba]

5. Indictment please.

[dixiegrrrrl]

6. Stupider is more dense than intelligence.

thus has higher gravitational pull. Thus attracting increasing stupid.

My own theory of why it seems to be getting so much worse as time goes on.


We are doomed.

[TwilightGardener]

8. Gee, why ever would they have done that, between the years of 2001-2009?

It's a mystery, isn't it.