The Minerals Management Services And Big Oil Run Like Criminal Enterprises

There's just no way to explain the anger residents of the Florida Keys feel toward those most responsible for lax inspections and regulation of Big Oil in the Gulf Of Mexico.

Chief among the criminally negligent are the fat cat bureaucrats at the Federal Government's MMS (Minerals Management Services) who have neglected their duties.

From a New York Times article on May 13, 2010 headlined U.S. Said to Allow Drilling Without Needed Permits we read the beginning of the article,

WASHINGTON — The federal Minerals Management Service gave permission to BP and dozens of other oil companies to drill in the Gulf of Mexico without first getting required permits from another agency that assesses threats to endangered species — and despite strong warnings from that agency about the impact the drilling was likely to have on the gulf.

Those approvals, federal records show, include one for the well drilled by the Deepwater Horizon rig, which exploded on April 20, killing 11 workers and resulting in thousands of barrels of oil spilling into the gulf each day.

The Minerals Management Service, or M.M.S., also routinely overruled its staff biologists and engineers who raised concerns about the safety and the environmental impact of certain drilling proposals in the gulf and in Alaska, according to a half-dozen current and former agency scientists.

Those scientists said they were also regularly pressured by agency officials to change the findings of their internal studies if they predicted that an accident was likely to occur or if wildlife might be harmed.

Under the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the Minerals Management Service is required to get permits to allow drilling where it might harm endangered species or marine mammals.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, is partly responsible for protecting endangered species and marine mammals. It has said on repeated occasions that drilling in the gulf affects these animals, but the minerals agency since January 2009 has approved at least three huge lease sales, 103 seismic blasting projects and 346 drilling plans. Agency records also show that permission for those projects and plans was granted without getting the permits required under federal law.

“M.M.S. has given up any pretense of regulating the offshore oil industry,” said Kierán Suckling, director of the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental advocacy group in Tucson, which filed notice of intent to sue the agency over its noncompliance with federal law concerning endangered species. “The agency seems to think its mission is to help the oil industry evade environmental laws.”

Kendra Barkoff, a spokeswoman for the Interior Department, said her agency had full consultations with NOAA about endangered species in the gulf. But she declined to respond to additional questions about whether her agency had obtained the relevant permits.

Federal records indicate that these consultations ended with NOAA instructing the minerals agency that continued drilling in the gulf was harming endangered marine mammals and that the agency needed to get permits to be in compliance with federal law.

Responding to the accusations that agency scientists were being silenced, Ms. Barkoff added, “Under the previous administration, there was a pattern of suppressing science in decisions, and we are working very hard to change the culture and empower scientists in the Department of the Interior.”

Note to readers of this blog. I know some of you are joining Tea Baggers in shouting for shrinking government and less regulation. Please, re-read the beginning of this article above and tell me again why allowing big business to influence your thinking is making our world a better place to live.

The primary governmental agency responsible for leasing drilling areas to oil companies was in bed with Big Oil. They over-ruled scientists from NOAA. They steam-rolled warnings about dangers to the fragile Gulf eco-system.

The NY Times Article continues:

Managers at the agency have routinely overruled staff scientists whose findings highlight the environmental risks of drilling, according to a half-dozen current or former agency scientists.

The scientists, none of whom wanted to be quoted by name for fear of reprisals by the agency or by those in the industry, said they had repeatedly had their scientific findings changed to indicate no environmental impact or had their calculations of spill risks downgraded.

“You simply are not allowed to conclude that the drilling will have an impact,” said one scientist who has worked for the minerals agency for more than a decade. “If you find the risks of a spill are high or you conclude that a certain species will be affected, your report gets disappeared in a desk drawer and they find another scientist to redo it or they rewrite it for you.”

Another biologist who left the agency in 2005 after more than five years said that agency officials went out of their way to accommodate the oil and gas industry.

He said, for example, that seismic activity from drilling can have a devastating effect on mammals and fish, but that agency officials rarely enforced the regulations meant to limit those effects.

He also said the agency routinely ceded to the drilling companies the responsibility for monitoring species that live or spawn near the drilling projects.

“What I observed was M.M.S. was trying to undermine the monitoring and mitigation requirements that would be imposed on the industry,” he said.

MMS is a criminal enterprise with a governmental imprimatur, no less. Sociopaths inside MMS and in bed with Big Oil are working against interests of taxpayers and businesses whose livelihoods depend on clean water and abundant wildlife.

The NY Times article adds,

Aside from allowing BP and other companies to drill in the gulf without getting the required permits from NOAA, the minerals agency has also given BP and other drilling companies in the gulf blanket exemptions from having to provide environmental impact statements.

Much as BP’s drilling plan asserted that there was no chance of an oil spill, the company also claimed in federal documents that its drilling would not have any adverse effect on endangered species.

The gulf is known for its biodiversity. Various endangered species are found in the area where the Deepwater Horizon was drilling, including sperm whales, blue whales and fin whales.

In some instances, the minerals agency has indeed sought and received permits in the gulf to harm certain endangered species like green and loggerhead sea turtles. But the agency has not received these permits for endangered species like the sperm and humpback whales, which are more common in the areas where drilling occurs and thus are more likely to be affected.

Note to Watchworld readers: BP swore an oil spill of this size was "impossible". BP also appliied for permits which would damage such wildlife as green loggerhead turtles, but somehow its activities would not endanger endangered species such as sperm and humback whales.

Which leads this skeptic to ask BP, "Did you guys develop a method of seismic activity which harms turtles but not whales, and if so, why couldn't you develop one which did not harm any sea life? What do you guys have against turtles?"

Which is another way of saying, I don't believe a goddamn thing BP executives say to the press, nor should you.

These corporate criminals along with their criminal bureaucrats from the MMS need to be fired, tried and jailed.

That not a single MMS official or BP, Transocean or Halliburton Executive has not resigned over their collusive efforts to suborn lax government regulation of such dangerous activity as undersea drilling tells us they are all thinking, "Business as usual."

If Obama wants respect from Americns in Gulf states, he needs to start an investigation into MMS and Big Oil. And he needs to take a giant machete and chop off heads of the guilty.