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- iHaveNet.com: Politics
by Kent Garber
"Cozy relationship" is one of those phrases Washington loves. During the financial crisis, there were allegations of cozy relationships between bankers and the government regulators who were supposed to be policing them in the public interest. It's a similar story with the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. "For too long, for a decade or more," President Obama said recently, "there has been a cozy relationship between the oil companies and the federal agency that permits them to drill."
Obama was referring specifically to the Minerals Management Service, which is part of the
It was no shock, then, that
But judging from past efforts to end cozy relationships, just splitting up MMS probably won't be enough. In recent years, several other agencies have been taken to task by
Take the
That led to hearings, drafting of legislation, and, with the change in administrations, more interest in enforcement. But there are still problems. "There's a lot that can't be mandated," Goodrich says. In general, she says, federal agencies tend to focus too much on quantity -- checking things off the list -- rather than on quality, because that's how supervisors are graded. In other words, there's a certain culture that develops within federal agencies that takes a long time to change.
Cleaning up MMS may prove even more challenging. Kendall, in her report, focused on agency culture, saying that her gravest concern with MMS is "the environment in which these inspectors operate -- particularly the ease with which they move between industry and government." The report quotes one MMS employee saying that "almost all of our inspectors have worked for oil companies out on these same platforms." Among other things, Kendall suggests that the department consider a "two year waiting period" on hiring inspectors from industry.
Another area
Meanwhile, Obama is launching a commission to investigate what went wrong on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the Gulf, similar to the commissions that investigated the Challenger space shuttle explosion and the Three Mile Island nuclear plant incident. After Three Mile Island, of course, the nuclear industry went moribund. Obama doesn't want the same for offshore oil, and that might just mean ending the cozy relationships once and for all.
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Obama and Congress Question Cozy Relationship With Oil Companies | Politics
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