Strict Rules for Regulators on Ties to the Oil Industry

[ProSense]

Source: The Wall Street Journal

The Obama administration on Tuesday ordered federal offshore-oil regulators to recuse themselves from official actions involving companies that employ their family members or close friends. It also placed new restrictions on regulators' oversight of companies they once worked for.

The moves by the new director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, Michael Bromwich, reflect a broader effort by Washington to sever the links between oil companies and federal regulators in the wake of the BP PLC oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

But the rules highlight the challenge Mr. Bromwich faces in pulling apart the ties of friendship, family and culture in the Gulf Coast communities that depend on offshore drilling.

Rig workers and agency employees in the Gulf Coast "have often known one another since childhood," according to a report published earlier this year by the Interior Department's inspector general. The same report found that at one agency office in Louisiana, employees accepted sporting-event tickets, lunches and other gifts earlier this decade from oil and natural-gas companies.



Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704421104575463753108878406.html

[wordpix]

1. applause - I hope this applies to the higher ups like Salazar

The more I learn about him, the more I think he's an oil corpos shill. Certainly did nothing to turn MMS around upon taking office.

[Cirque du So-What]

2. Come criticize THIS, Obama-bashers!

or is your motto 'accentuate the negative, ignore the positive?' The critics are out in force this morning, but you won't see a mother's one of them acknowledge these new regulations.

[L0oniX]

3. Now ya need to do this with congress.

Congress asscarrots own stock in the MIC and then vote for war. What's wrong with that?