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OFFSHORE DRILLING: WILL INTERIOR’S REFORMS

CHANGE ITS HISTORY OF FAILED OVERSIGHT

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT

AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

JULY 22, 2010

Serial No. 111–109

Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform

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Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/index.html

http://www.house.gov/reform

(II)

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York, Chairman

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

DIANE E. WATSON, California

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

JIM COOPER, Tennessee

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia

MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois

MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

PATRICK J. KENNEDY, Rhode Island

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland

HENRY CUELLAR, Texas

PAUL W. HODES, New Hampshire

CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut

PETER WELCH, Vermont

BILL FOSTER, Illinois

JACKIE SPEIER, California

STEVE DRIEHAUS, Ohio

JUDY CHU, California

DARRELL E. ISSA, California

DAN BURTON, Indiana

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina

BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California

JIM JORDAN, Ohio

JEFF FLAKE, Arizona

JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska

JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah

AARON SCHOCK, Illinois

BLAINE LUETKEMEYER, Missouri

ANH ‘‘JOSEPH’’ CAO, Louisiana

BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania

RON STROMAN, Staff Director

MICHAEL MCCARTHY, Deputy Staff Director

CARLA HULTBERG, Chief Clerk

LARRY BRADY, Minority Staff Director

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C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on July 22, 2010 ............................................................................... 1

Statement of:

Rusco, Frank, Director, Natural Resources and the Environment, GAO;

Mary L. Kendall, Acting Inspector General, Office of Inspector General,

U.S. Department of the Interior; Danielle Brian, executive director,

Project on Government Oversight; and Charlotte Randolph, president,

LaFourche Parish .......................................................................................... 60

Brian, Danielle .......................................................................................... 95

Kendall, Mary L. ....................................................................................... 89

Randolph, Charlotte .................................................................................. 106

Rusco, Frank .............................................................................................. 60

Salazar, Ken, Secretary, U.S. Department of the Interior; and Michael

R. Bromwich, Director, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement .................................................................................. 15

Bromwich, Michael R. ............................................................................... 29

Salazar, Ken .............................................................................................. 15

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:

Brian, Danielle, executive director, Project on Government Oversight,

prepared statement of ................................................................................... 97

Bromwich, Michael R., Director, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management,

Regulation, and Enforcement, prepared statement of ............................... 31

Connolly, Hon. Gerald E., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Virginia, prepared statement of .............................................................. 130

Issa, Hon. Darrell E., a Representative in Congress from the State of

California, prepared statement of ................................................................ 10

Kendall, Mary L., Acting Inspector General, Office of Inspector General,

U.S. Department of the Interior, prepared statement of ........................... 91

Luetkemeyer, Hon. Blaine, a Representative in Congress from the State

of Missouri, prepared statement of .............................................................. 121

Randolph, Charlotte, president, LaFourche Parish, prepared statement

of ..................................................................................................................... 108

Rusco, Frank, Director, Natural Resources and the Environment, GAO,

prepared statement of ................................................................................... 62

Salazar, Ken, Secretary, U.S. Department of the Interior, prepared statement of ........................................................................................................... 18

Towns, Chairman Edolphus, a Representative in Congress from the State

of New York, prepared statement of ........................................................... 4

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OFFSHORE DRILLING: WILL INTERIOR’S REFORMS CHANGE ITS HISTORY OF FAILED

OVERSIGHT

THURSDAY, JULY 22, 2010

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM,

Washington, DC.

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:11 a.m., in room

2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Edolphus Towns (chairman of the committee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Towns, Maloney, Cummings, Kucinich,

Clay, Watson, Connolly, Kaptur, Norton, Van Hollen, Murphy,

Welch, Speier, Driehaus, Chu, Issa, Burton, Mica, Duncan, Turner,

McHenry, Bilbray, Jordan, Fortenberry, Luetkemeyer, and Cao.

Staff present: John Arlington, chief counsel—investigations;

Kwame Canty, senior advisor; Lisa Cody, Craig Fischer, Katherine

Graham, investigators; Brian Eiler and Neema Guliana, investigative counsels; Aaron Ellias, staff assistant; Linda Good, deputy

chief clerk; Velginy Hernandez, press assistant; Adam Hodge, deputy press secretary; Carla Hultberg, chief clerk; Marc Johnson, assistant clerk; Mike McCarthy, deputy staff director; Leneal Scott,

IT specialist; Ron Stroman, staff director; Lawrence Brady, minority staff director; John Cuaderes, minority deputy staff director;

Rob Borden, minority general counsel; Jennifer Safavian, minority

chief counsel for oversight and investigations; Frederick Hill, minority director of communications; Adam Fromm, minority chief

clerk and Member liaison; Justin LoFranco, minority press assistant and clerk; Tom Alexander and Kristina Moore, minority senior

counsels; and John Ohly, minority professional staff member.

Chairman TOWNS. The meeting will come to order.

Good morning and thank you for being here.

The Interior Department is responsible for the regulation and

oversight of offshore oil drilling. Unfortunately, the BP oil spill followed a long history of regulatory and ethical failures at the Interior Department and its Minerals Management Service [MMS].

The Deepwater Horizon disaster has now exposed what appears

to be continuing, major problems at MMS. Over the last decade,

MMS has essentially permitted the oil industry to police itself.

For example, in 2000, MMS issued an alert requiring oil companies to have a backup system to activate ‘‘blowout preventers,’’ one

of the components that failed, contributed to the Deepwater Horizon explosion, and exacerbated the size of the oil spill. But MMS

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officials decided to let oil industry executives determine how they

wanted to comply with this requirement.

In other words, BP and the other oil companies were essentially

on the honor system. The Deepwater Horizon disaster suggests this

is not an effective approach to ensuring safe offshore drilling.

Regulatory failures at MMS were made worse by the rapid

growth of offshore oil drilling in the Gulf. Over the last two decades, the number of offshore oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico has expanded dramatically, and extended further offshore into much

deeper waters. Yet, at the same time, MMS remained relatively

small, had trouble recruiting qualified engineers and inspectors,

and could not keep up.

Though drilling has expanded in the Gulf by tenfold, the number

of inspectors has only grown by 13 percent. The result: fewer than

60 inspectors are currently responsible for conducting over 18,000

inspections annually.

The agency was born with a built-in conflict of interest. When

MMS was created, it was given the dueling responsibilities of promoting drilling and collecting royalty payments on the one hand,

while also issuing and enforcing environmental and safety regulations on the other hand.

It seems as though it was only a matter of time before these conflicting responsibilities would lead to the disaster we are seeing

here today.

In short, it was a tug-of-war between drilling and safety. As the

BP disaster illustrates, safety found itself on the losing side of the

struggle.

Even worse, regulatory failures have been accompanied by ethical failures.

In 2008, the Interior Department’s Inspector General found a

‘‘culture of ethical failure’’ within MMS’s Royalty-In-Kind program.

The IG’s investigation revealed that, over a 4-year period, senior

employees within MMS improperly accepted gifts and engaged in

sex and drug abuse with oil company employees.

Unfortunately, this was not an isolated incident.

Just last month, the IG released another report which found that

inspectors improperly accepted gifts from oil companies. Additionally, at least one employee simultaneously conducted inspections of

an oil company’s operations while negotiating employment with the

very same company.

In addition, in a series of reports, GAO found that flaws in royalty collection have resulted in millions of dollars in lost revenue.

We can and must do a better job overseeing offshore oil and gas

activities.

Today, we will hear directly from the Secretary and Mr.

Bromwich about how exactly they plan to implement the reorganization and increase oversight and accountability at MMS, which

we are anxious and eager to hear.

Before we begin, however, I want to make one final observation.

While the Interior Department is responsible for regulating the

oil industry and they have been taking a lot of heat for that, it does

not change the fact that BP was responsible for the safety of its

oil well and BP was responsible in terms of responding to the oil

spill. And it is BP that is ultimately responsible for the entire

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cleanup and the costs, as well as the job losses and lost income resulting from the spill.

I am committed to ensuring that the Government has the authority and ability to effectively regulate the safety of offshore oil drilling.

On that note, I now yield 5 minutes to the ranking member of

the full committee, the gentleman from California, Congressman

Issa.

[The prepared statement of Chairman Edolphus Towns follows:]

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Mr. ISSA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for holding

this important hearing.

Five years ago we began looking at failures in the Gulf and more.

In light of Hurricane Katrina, we knew that this was a sensitive

area and one that would struggle for years to come, and one that

was vulnerable to failures by the Federal Government in just an

area or two. And whether it is the levies that failed to protect the

people of New Orleans or the plan approved by Mineral Management Service that failed to even consider the possibility that oil

could come ashore in a disaster of this size, we, the Federal Government, have failed.

Every day every American here somewhere, it seems, a chain is

only as strong as its weakest link. There were two weak links that

led to this disaster: British Petroleum acting irresponsibly, failing

to maintain safety standards well established in the industry, failing to maintain their own safety standards, and being in too big

a hurry to cut corners, cut costs, ultimately leading to the loss of

life and the loss of billions of dollars to the American people around

the Gulf and beyond.

But there is another weak link, a well noted weak link, one that

this committee has been pursuing change for almost 6 years now

from: Mineral Management Service, an organization that has

checks and balances that mean nothing. Years ago we discovered

that when a contract was signed, person after person after person

was required to initial it. They initialed it and nothing else; they

did not read it, they did not verify, they did not ask any questions.

That kind of absence does not just go to the engineers that are

hard to recruit; it goes to the very top of the organization, and has

under multiple administrations. In fact, problems in our first set of

hearings go all the way back to the Clinton administration. But let

us make it very clear, those problems were well known during the

entire Bush administration, and for those 8 years change did not

occur.

Sadly, Mr. Secretary, during the year and a half of your administration, change did not occur. I know that it seems like a very little

bit of time, but if in fact the 20 or so findings that have occurred

by your own IGs and GAO had been put together with the work

of this committee sooner, and the urgency put onto it, I believe this

could have been prevented.

Having said that, we need to look to the future. We need to look

to real change in the Mineral Management Service. I personally

would not like to see it broken into three even smaller parts but,

rather, have the real focus either as an independent agency or as

one that has a level of clarity to the American people, much more

similar to the EPA. We need to have that. We need to have the

American people understand that the proper revenue that has not

come to the American people is a factor; the proper controls and

safeguards are a factor.

Chairman Waxman, Mr. Kucinich, Mr. Towns, and the rest of us

have all seen hearings, but we haven’t seen the amount of hearings

that we should have had, and we haven’t had the followup by previous administrations or, to date, by your administration.

I believe that there are a number of factors that we can deal with

today that have to do with the current disaster, with a number of

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factors including, if you will, an overstatement of available resources, an over-reporting of available resources and when they

were there, and a number of other areas. Those occurred under

your watch.

But ultimately this is the Committee on Oversight and Reform,

and it is those published 20 reports that we want to deal with primarily; it is the discovery of documents that would allow us to take

a first hand in the reorganization to ensure that, when this is over

with, we can count on an agency that recruits and trains the kind

of second guessers to an oil industry.

I think it is important to note that there are many, many, many

rigs that have been operated safely and responsibly. It only takes

one operating irresponsibly and then a lack of oversight. In fact, to

my amazement, the last inspection by Minerals Management Service of this rig before the disaster occurred, as required, with two

individuals; two being part of the inspection team. That was because there was a requirement to have two separate people independently second-guessing each other. To my amazement, of

course, it was a father-son team and, in fact, less likely to be independent.

This is one of many too cozy relationships at MMS that have to

change. This has to be an organization of professionals, not a family practice.

The American people want us to take care of a number of items,

but they want us to go further. I will note today that four other

major oil companies have announced an investment in the construction of a very large dome designed to work in the Gulf, certainly on our part of the Gulf, but perhaps in Brazil and other

areas, if a similar event happens. This kind of proactive thinking

is important.

In fact, Mr. Secretary, to the extent that you have been involved

in it, either by urging or demanding, I would like to personally applaud you. I believe that when we look at the blow-off preventers

next generation, something that has been needed since 2003, and

we look at the recovery and response assets, not just for this event,

but for any event, for a major shipwreck, a hurricane that destroys

a refinery, or even chemical failures, we all have a responsibility

to see that we go with a program much more similar to putting a

man on the moon than simply business as usual in the Gulf.

So, Mr. Chairman, I look forward to an extensive hearing today.

I look forward to the balance of our discovery, and I look forward

to working with you on trying to oversee over the next couple of

years a real birth of an organization unlike the old MMS and much

more like an organization that we can all be assured will keep the

good actors doing what they are supposed to and the bad actors altogether out of the business.

With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Darrell E. Issa follows:]

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Chairman TOWNS. I also now recognize for 3 minutes the gentleman who is the chairman of the subcommittee from Ohio, Congressman Kucinich.

Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for calling

this hearing on ‘‘Offshore Drilling: Will Interior’s Reforms Change

Its History of Failed Oversight.’’

It is important that we do our work of oversight, but I also have

to tell you that while I am sitting here looking at the preparation

for the hearing and thinking about how we are going to focus on

things, for example, I am going to have some questions, so you can

think about it now, about the Atlantis platform, how 19 Members

of Congress wrote to the Minerals Management Service back in

February raising questions about engineering documents and didn’t

get the answers that we were entitled to. The breach in the catastrophe occurred with Deepwater Horizon, but the questions that we

raised with respect to the Atlantis platform were relevant not only

to Atlantis, but Deepwater Horizon and other platforms that are

out there in the Gulf.

So we are going to get into that in the Q&A, but I just have to

say something about this moment. There seems to be some feeling

in this country that we can endlessly invade the natural world

without any consequences. Well, the catastrophe in the Gulf put

the lie to that, but we still believe we can do it. We are still moving

forward with people talking about doing drilling and we have built

our whole economy around this.

So, Mr. Secretary, you are being asked to defend a system which

truly is basically collapsing. It really is. And I thank you for your

service, but the fact of the matter is the system itself is collapsing.

We think we can keep interfering in the natural world without any

consequences. We think we can postpone the delivery or the development of alternative energies. We think we can keep on living in

this country the way we have been living, without any correction

in our course, even in the face of a tremendous catastrophe in the

Gulf.

Well, we are going to have to start thinking again.

I yield back.

Chairman TOWNS. I thank the gentleman from Ohio.

I now recognize the gentleman from Florida, Congressman Mica,

for 3 minutes.

Mr. MICA. Well, first of all, I want to thank Chairman Towns

and Mr. Issa for convening this hearing. I am pleased to see the

Secretary here. There are some very serious questions that need to

be answered about what took place and also what measures we

have in place to deal with the current spill that I see from Florida

around the Gulf Coast, affecting people’s life, the moratorium. We

have so many questions, but I am pleased that you are here to

hopefully shed some light on it, and your colleague.

Mr. Issa stated that we knew something was rotten in the Minerals Management Service even under the Bush administration,

and I will put in the record a copy of a letter that cites three criminal investigations were launched during the Bush administration

on that agency, things we knew there were problems with. I would

like to know from you, when you inherited that position, if that

was one of your focuses.

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There are other questions that have been raised about the development of policy with the new administration. You know, I think

a lot of people voted for President Obama on the other side; they

thought they were the protectors of the environment and all this.

And it turns out that they were asleep at the switch.

What baffles me is how you could come up with proposals, and

I want to know if you were consulted on this budget proposal in

2011 to cut the Coast Guard budget, which is one of the first responders whenever you have an oil incident or a disaster in this

country. In addition, $2 million cut from MMS, Minerals Management Service’s budget for environmental reviews. It is in here;

these were proposals. I don’t know if you had anything to do with

this in February of this year. This is February, and then in March

the administration develops a policy. Here is the headline from the

New York Times, ‘‘Obama to Open Offshore Areas to Oil Drilling,’’

and it cites the Gulf of Mexico.

So here we are cutting the assets and those responsible for oversight and permitting, and there are questions about the rubberstamping carte blanche of the approval. This is the approval signed

by your administration to drill in deepwater. And then the rush to

do more deepwater drilling. This is the list of 33 approvals by the

Obama administration. There is only a total of 27 deepwater operations in the Gulf after those are exploratory, half, approximately,

production, but your rush to more drilling and cutting the assets.

I think I would like to know how this policy was developed and

if you had any part in it, or what the thinking was when they took

this path.

Chairman TOWNS. The gentleman’s time has expired.

Mr. MICA. I yield back the balance of my time.

Chairman TOWNS. Thank you very much.

Let me indicate that is the longstanding policy of this committee

that we swear all of our witnesses in, so if you would stand and

raise your right hands.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Chairman TOWNS. You may be seated.

Let the record reflect that the witnesses answered in the affirmative.

We are delighted to have Secretary Salazar with us. He is serving as the fiftieth Secretary of the U.S. Department of Interior.

Prior to his confirmation, Secretary Salazar served as a Senator

from the great State of Colorado. Before becoming Senator, Secretary Salazar spent two terms as Colorado’s attorney general and

served as chief legal counsel and executive director of the Colorado

Department of Natural Resources in the cabinet of Governor Roy

Romer.

Welcome. We are aware of your time constraints, and we will respect them, no question about it.

Then Mr. Michael Bromwich was sworn in to lead the Bureau of

Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement, formerly known as MMS, on June 21, 2010. Director Bromwich previously served as inspector general for the Department of Justice

and as an assistant U.S. attorney in the southern district of New

York. Most recently, Director Bromwich was a partner at the law

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firm of Fried Frank, where he specialized in conducting internal investigations.

We welcome both of you.

At this time, I ask that each witness deliver their testimony

within 5 minutes, which will allow the committee ample time to

raise questions, also considering your time constraints, Secretary.

Of course, you know the rules. They start out with the light on

green; then, of course, you know, because you know all about these

lights, then at the end it becomes red. So, Mr. Secretary, you may

begin.

STATEMENTS OF KEN SALAZAR, SECRETARY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR; AND MICHAEL R. BROMWICH, DIRECTOR, BUREAU OF OCEAN ENERGY MANAGEMENT, REGULATION, AND ENFORCEMENT

STATEMENT OF KEN SALAZAR

Secretary SALAZAR. Thank you very much, Chairman Towns, and

thank you, Congressman Issa, and all the distinguished members

of the committee who are here. At the outset, let me just say thank

you to the committee for the work that it has done in the prior

years relative to putting into the spotlight some of the necessary

reform efforts that are required of the Minerals Management Service, many of those which we have been working on since day one,

when I became Secretary of the Interior.

Let me, at the outset, just say to the members of the committee

I know you are all wondering about the status of where we are

with respect to the containment of the oil leak out in the Gulf of

Mexico. Since day one, and today is day plus 93, we have been

working from early morning until late at night making sure that

the entire arsenal of the United States of America is focused on the

problem and getting it resolved.

Myself and Secretary Suh, other members of the Cabinet, have

been working on this from day one, and as of today we see the light

at the end of the tunnel. There is a shut-in that has occurred of

the well and the monitoring that we have required of BP is showing that it is holding. But the weather patterns that we are seeing

may have some interruption in terms of getting to the ultimate solution here, which is the ultimate kills that have to occur of this

well. But we are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.

Let me move to the subject area that I think this committee

wants to explore, and that is the issue of responsibility and what

is it that has happened here. Let me frame it for this committee

the way that I see it. This is a collective responsibility, and I do

not believe that, at the end of the day, the blame game is going

to help us relative to how we move forward and develop the broad

energy portfolio and the comprehensive energy plan that is required of America; that we need to work together to fix the problem, make sure we learn the lessons from this incident, and that

we move forward with an energy portfolio that I think, at the end

of the day, will include oil and gas. That has been the position of

the President and my position as Secretary of Interior.

In terms of the responsibility for this incident that brings us here

today, certainly, BP and other companies that were involved have

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broken the rules and have strayed from the best practices of the

industry. Many investigations are going on. Much of that has already been reported in the press.

Second, industry has made the wrong representations, both to

the Congress as well as to the Department of Interior and others,

with respect to drilling safety, with respect to the ability to contain

blowouts, and with respect to oil spill response. The efforts announced yesterday by the four major companies in moving forward

with a billion dollar effort, on which I was briefed, will need significant additional work before we can be satisfied with at least one

of those particular prongs that I think are essential to be righted.

Third, the Congress serves a responsibility. This committee has

been at the forefront, at least, of exposing some of the ethical

lapses, but, at the end of the day, the drilling that has occurred in

the deepwater drilling has been something which this Congress has

also embraced. And I recognize that I too was a Member of the U.S.

Senate. The passage of the 2005 Energy Policy Act which you, Congressman Issa, and other members of this committee, voted on essentially was part of a national framework.

Fourth, there is a reality that this is an issue which requires

looking back not just at one administration, but it is multiple administrations. The MMS was formed in 1981, and you think about

the fact that there have been Republican and Democratic administrations that essentially have allowed this organization to continue

by fiat of Secretary Lauder, and it was for that reason that even

as early as last year proposed to the Natural Resources Committee,

Congressman Rahall’s committee, that we move forward with organic legislation because the missions of this agency are so important.

So let me just say it is a shared responsibility and we need to

move forward and fix the problems.

I believe that we started, in my tenure as Secretary of the Interior, moving forward implementing the reform agenda, much of

which had been uncovered through some of the work of this committee. On ethics, from day one, we put together a strong and robust ethics program, working with the findings of the Inspector

General and moving forward to clean up the corruption that occurred in Lakewood and other places. People have been fired; people have been sent over for criminal prosecution; people have been

suspended; and we have done everything that we can to clean

house from an ethics point of view.

We eliminated the Royalty-in-Kind program which had existed

for a long time and which had been one of the magnets for corruption. That has been eliminated and we move forward with a comprehensive review and change with respect to the Outer Continental Shelf plan that had been proposed by the prior administration.

Finally, we have worked very hard to stand up the renewable energy resources out in the oceans of America.

With respect to what has happened since April 20th and how we

move forward with that reform agenda, it is a continuing effort. We

have proposed and developed a report on safety to the president of

the United States. It was a 30-day report that laid out a number

of different majors from prevention mechanisms to moving with cementing, encasing, and the like.

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We have proposed, in the last 2 years’ budgets, efforts to expand

the number of inspectors that we have at MMS and we are moving

forward with the reorganization of MMS now into the Bureau of

Ocean Energy Management, Enforcement, and Regulation, and

that is being done under the leadership of Wilma Lewis and Michael Bromwich.

Let me just say that both of them have incredible credentials as

prosecutors, as well as Inspectors General, and they were chosen

by me to run the agency in large part because of the ethical improprieties which this committee and which the Inspector General had

uncovered.

So we have been working hard on making sure that those ethical

lapses are not there, and we understand that there is still significant reform that we have to undertake in the days and months

ahead, and we will be focused on it like laser beam and look forward to working with you, Mr. Chairman, Congressman Issa, and

members of this committee, to make sure that the new organizational ultimately gets it right.

Let me finally say I know some of you will have questions on the

moratorium. I would be delighted to answer those questions.

Finally, just in terms of what I hope the legacy of this crisis is.

I would hope that, as we learn the lessons from this crisis, that at

the end of the day we will look back at this time and we will say

that we have, together as a Nation, developed safer oil and gas production in the Outer Continental Shelf that does in fact protect the

environment and protect the safety of the workers.

I would hope that we can move forward as a Nation and say that

we have restored the Gulf Coast to a place that it is in a better

condition than it was before April 20th, and I would hope that we

are able to move forward and embrace the new energy future of

America with a much broader portfolio that includes solar and

wind and geothermal and all the rest of the portfolio that is part

of the renewable energy initiative of President Obama and Members of this Congress.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The prepared statement of Secretary Salazar follows:]

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Chairman TOWNS. Thank you, Mr. Secretary, for your statement.

Mr. Bromwich.

STATEMENT OF MICHAEL R. BROMWICH

Mr. BROMWICH. Thank you very much, Chairman Towns, Ranking Member Issa, and other distinguished members of the committee. It is a pleasure to be here and to testify before you, and to answer any questions you may have.

As the chairman noted and as the Secretary noted, I am new on

this job; I have been on the job exactly a month yesterday as head

of the newly renamed Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement. The change of name was made by Secretary Salazar with a point, which was to stress and emphasize the

regulation and enforcement part of the organization’s mission that

many people have fairly suggested has been ignored or neglected

in the past.

Let me focus very briefly on three things that we have been

doing since I got there. No. 1, on the second day after I was named

Director, with Secretary Salazar’s approval, we created an Investigations and Review Unit within the organization that will have

several primary functions, but the principle function will be some

self-policing. It will be authorized in conjunction and cooperation

and communication with the Office of the Inspector General to do

investigations into ethical lapses, into misconduct, and so forth. To

my surprise, there had not been that capability within the organization previously. I believe that any healthy and robust organization should have that capability. This organization now has that.

Second, that unit, the Investigations and Review Unit, will

spearhead a heightened enforcement program that will be focused

on oil and gas companies, and that will launch aggressive investigations in those cases in which there are allegations that the

rules have been violated. Too often in the past I have heard and

I fear enforcement has not been vigilant, it has not been aggressive. That will change.

Finally, as the ranking member and the chairman noted, there

have been many, many reviews and investigations by various entities, including the Office of the Inspector General, GAO, and so

forth. One of the duties of this Investigation and Review Unit will

be to followup on those reviews to see whether the remedial steps

that should have been taken and where statements may have been

made that those remedial steps had been taken, whether they in

fact have been taken. So that kind of followup work will be a central mission of the Investigations and Review Unit.

The next subject I would like to touch on briefly are the new regulations that have already been implemented and that will be implemented in the future. Following the Deepwater Horizon blowout

and the 30-day safety report that the Secretary mentioned, a new

safety regulation, NTL–5, was issued that is binding on the industry. That was followed by the issuance of NTL–6, which is a more

environmentally oriented regulation. These are tough new rules

and regulations that govern oil and gas companies as they do work

in the Outer Continental Shelf, and I think they are fair and appropriate new rules and regulations.

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There are other rulemakings that are in process that are, in part,

the product of learning that has gone on in the Interior Department both previously and that is going on in an accelerated way

over the last 2 months, and we hope to be putting out those rules

in the near future. Again, I think we feel that those are necessary

and appropriate.

Finally, the Secretary mentioned briefly the moratorium. One of

the charges he gave me in connection with the moratorium issued

on July 12th was to conduct a series of public forums around the

country to gather information on three central issues, drilling safety, spill containment, and spill response, with an eye to gathering

as much information from industry, from academia, from stakeholders, from NGO’s, from environmental groups to determine

whether there are ways in which the moratorium might be shortened before the November 30th current expiration date, but generally to learn as much as we can on what additional measures

need to be taken on those three dimensions to ensure that when

deepwater drilling is resumed it is done in a safe and appropriate

manner.

We will begin those meetings starting August 4th in New Orleans. We will follow those with a series of meetings in Mobile, AL,

Pensacola, FL, Santa Barbara, CA, Anchorage, AK, Biloxi, MI,

Houston, TX, and Lafayette, LA. Those will be conducted between

August 4th and September 15th with a call to report back to Secretary Salazar with the results of those public forums no later than

October 31st.

It is a lot of work, but it is a lot of important work, and we look

forward to doing it and I look forward to working with you. Thank

you very much.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Bromwich follows:]

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Chairman TOWNS. Thank you. Thank you for your statement.

Let me begin with Secretary Salazar. Will you commit today that

the reorganization process will be transparent and this committee

will be provided with all the critical details?

Secretary SALAZAR. Yes, we will absolutely be working with the

committee, with Members of Congress relative to legislation on the

reorganization, as well as keeping you up to date on the implementation of the new organization.

Chairman TOWNS. Now, I want to know how will the reorganization help to prevent further future disasters.

Secretary SALAZAR. Well, first, in terms of dealing with some of

the ethical lapses, which I agree have been abhorrent in the past

and which this committee has appropriately pointed out, as well as

our Inspector General of the Department of Interior, we are dividing up the agency into different units so the revenue functions that

were formerly in the MMS will move over into an office of Natural

Resources Revenue.

So the dollar collectors will be separated from those who are in

charge of granting the leases and doing the enforcement. The rest

of the agency which Director Bromwich will oversee will be split

into a Bureau that essentially manages the resource out in the

Outer Continental Shelf, both conventional, as well as renewable,

and another unit that essentially will be in charge of safety and enforcement.

So that is the essential concepts around the reorganization, to

ensure, first of all, that conflicts of interest are avoided in the future, the kinds that you have pointed out in your investigations,

and, second of all, that there is a kind of enforcement with respect

to safety and environmental requirements.

Chairman TOWNS. The GAO and, of course, DOI IG have made

numerous recommendations to improve royalty collection. Have you

implemented any of these recommendations up to this point?

Secretary SALAZAR. Mr. Chairman, the answer to that is we have

in major ways relative to the elimination of the Royalty-in-Kind

program. We are also looking at other ways in which we can provide a more effective calculation of royalties and have been working

at putting together a program so that the American taxpayer receives the return from the royalties from oil and gas production

that the American taxpayer deserves.

Chairman TOWNS. Let me ask you have you looked at the turnover process in terms of people that work for MMS moving on

based on the fact that they are so poorly paid?

Secretary SALAZAR. The revolving door issue is one that has troubled us and one that we are working on. It is my personal view

that if you have been an MMS Director, that you ought not to go

out and then work with the industry. But I will have Michael

Bromwich, if I may, Mr. Chairman, just quickly answer that question, because it is something that we have been focused on.

Chairman TOWNS. Sure.

Mr. BROMWICH. I think it is a serious issue and a serious problem. There have been historical problems in recruiting qualified inspectors, and many of the qualified inspectors do come from industry and then seem to want to go back to industry.

38

Now, it is my view that we can do a couple of things about that.

One is to create tighter rules to ensure that if people who are agency government inspectors do go back into the private sector, that

at least they don’t deal directly with the agency that they just left

on any of the matters that they worked on, and for some period of

time perhaps not deal with the agency at all. So that is one set of

issues that we are in the process of addressing.

I think a more fundamental issue, though, is how do you enlarge

the pool of qualified inspectors. One of the things that I have begun

conversations about is talking to some of the schools of engineering

around the country to see if we can develop recruiting programs so

that this becomes a desirable public service career path. Let’s recruit the best and the private out of some of the petroleum engineering schools around the country, people who have no prior ties

with industry, and let’s make it a sustainable career path so that

they are not tempted by more dollars in the private sector, but they

can make a decent living serving as a qualified inspector.

I had a conversation yesterday with the Dean of the School of

Engineering at UC Berkeley. He said there are a number of schools

of engineering deans around the country who are interested in

working with us on precisely this point. So we are at the very beginning stages of this, but I am very hopeful that we will have

some robust alternatives to the back and forth revolving door system that has existed up until now.

Chairman TOWNS. That is very encouraging.

I now yield 5 minutes to the ranking member, Congressman Issa.

Mr. ISSA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First, I would like to do just

a little technical housework.

Mr. Secretary, your staff, up until last night, told us that there

was a policy which they would not provide in writing, that you only

deliver document requests to the majority. Now, the majority has

been kindly making copies and giving them to us; however, under

Ranking Member Waxman and the Bush administration, we never

saw such a policy and we were not able to get it in writing.

Would you pledge that both the rest of the discovery would be

coming, which you have already said before the committee hearing

started, but also that the discovery would be transparent to both

sides? The chairman may have requests that are slightly different

than we have, but that what we request would be granted to both

sides at the same time, rather than relying on somebody to go

through and try to make an effective copy, rather than your knowing that you delivered both sides the same information?

Secretary SALAZAR. Congressman Issa, we delivered thousands of

pages of documents both to the chairman, as well as to you, and

we are working with you to try to get all the additional

documents——

Mr. ISSA. And I appreciate your participation and your promising

that. It was actually more technical than that. Until last night, any

documents we got we got because they were delivered to the majority and not to the minority, and the majority then made copies.

And that is not a normal practice from government.

Each of us has independent requests and usually they are shared

by delivering them either to the person who requested them, if only

one requested, but in most cases administration delivers to both

39

sides so that both sides know exactly what is being delivered. This

was troubling, particularly when, last night, your folks suddenly

changed, probably because you were going to be here, and gave us

both copies. We would like to know that would continue, that each

of us would get information independently, but copied to the other.

Secretary SALAZAR. Congressman Issa, let me just say that we

will follow the processes that the Department of Justice and others

have required of the executive branch of Government. My view is

that transparency is important. We have provided tremendous documents to this committee and will continue to work with you to

provide you the information that you need so that you have absolute information relative to what it is that you are seeking.

Mr. ISSA. OK, I won’t belabor the point; I will trust that if you

gave it to us directly last night, you are probably going to continue

giving it to us directly, and not the way your staff had decided to

do it prior to that time.

The questions I have are a number, and I will try to be brief. The

culture at MMS, we can talk about changing. Mr. Bromwich, I am

looking forward to your helping change that. But in our earlier investigations one of the things we discovered was that not only was

this organization cozy, it was inept. We had testimony in evidence

that now what you own, or maybe what you own, Mr. Secretary,

the portion that was collecting the money completely relied on the

energy companies to deliver how much was owed from where; that

there was no independent accounting and that no audit ever basically found a different number, meaning if Kerr-McGee, when they

were still in business, said we got X amount out and delivered X

amount of dollars, they just took the money and recorded it; that

they had no independent ability to know whether that was the

right number or not.

Do you, one or both of you, have plans to implement a system

so that you can independently discover how much oil or natural gas

or other resources are being taken out and verify them, not just

take the word of the good players and the bad players alike?

Secretary SALAZAR. The answer to that, Congressman Issa, is

yes, and we have already done it, indeed, with BP. We just sent

them a notice for some, I think, $5 million with respect to royalty

under-payments on an onshore activity. Second, with respect to the

Office of Natural Resource Revenue, which we have created, there

will be the auditing functions so that we can do that independent

verification, and perhaps Director Bromwich may want to comment

on that as well.

Mr. BROMWICH. I agree with you, Congressman Issa, that is an

inappropriate and unacceptable system. The Secretary has just

said that has been changed and that is absolutely the right way to

do it. You cannot rely on the regulated entity to report without

checking that, auditing it, and coming up with an independent assessment.

Mr. ISSA. I appreciate that. Very quickly, I might suggest that

every year the Army Corps of Engineers has huge amounts of senior engineers retire who still would like to work for government. I

would hope that you look at both ends of the spectrum, those coming directly out of universities that have never worked with oil

companies, but perhaps senior engineers who have 5, 10, or 15

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more good years to give that also are not tainted by an ambition

to work for seven figures for an oil company.

Mr. BROMWICH. I think that is a great idea. Last week I found

out that there may be a pool of people in the Coast Guard, I think

they are called warrant officers, who similarly have useful experience that we can count on. So I think there are actually pockets

of experienced personnel all over government that people just

haven’t thought of tapping into in the past, but that we are going

to try to tap into now.

Mr. ISSA. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman TOWNS. The gentleman’s time has expired.

I now yield to the gentleman from Ohio, Congressman Kucinich.

Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I indicated in my opening remarks that I had some questions

about the way that the Minerals Management Service handled the

British Petroleum’s Atlantis platform issues in the Gulf of Mexico.

I was 1 of 19 Members of Congress who signed a letter to the Minerals Management Service back in February 2010.

Mr. Bromwich, this was about 2 months before the Deepwater

Horizon incident. Ms. Birnbaum, the former director, received a letter about BP Atlantis’s platform. We requested an investigation to

verify a whistleblower claim that 90 percent of the final construction plans for the platform, almost 7,000 plans, were never approved. So if there is an accident on that rig, there would be no

plans for response teams to use to try to deal with it.

Though I am happy to see that an investigation is now underway, I am concerned that it is not expected to conclude until September. It is important to keep in mind that this platform is in waters deeper then the Deepwater Horizon platform, and BP’s own

worst case scenario for a catastrophe with Atlantis would put over

200,000 barrels of oil per day into the Gulf, which is about anywhere from 4 to 10 times the size of the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe.

My first question, Mr. Bromwich, is whether BP would be found

in violation of the law if it does not maintain certified as-built

drawings on file.

Mr. BROMWICH. I don’t know the answer to that. Let me get back

to you on that. My intuition is——

Mr. KUCINICH. I am disappointed that——

Mr. BROMWICH. My intuition is that the answer——

Mr. KUCINICH. I am disappointed you don’t have the answer to

that because that is your job. I will give you the answer. The answer would be yes.

Now, I am told that it should not take that long to review the

plans. That raises a question: that the plans might not even exist.

I am concerned that Atlantis is the rule, and not the exception.

Given what we know about the Horizon accident, and how BP

Atlantis does not have engineer-certified documents for its subsea

components, as required by law, wouldn’t it make sense for the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement

to close the Atlantis project, as well as any deepwater drilling production operations in the Gulf that lack final plans until an independent third party have proven that they are operating with comVerDate 11-MAY-2000 14:17 Mar 25, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00044 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\KATIES\DOCS\63146.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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plete sets of engineer-approved drawings for their above- and

below-sea components? Mr. Bromwich.

Mr. BROMWICH. Congressman, you are correct that there is an investigation ongoing. You are also correct that it is going to be completed by the end of September. I am advised that there is a letter

that is on its way to me that will update you and other interested

members of the committee with what I anticipate will be preliminary results of that investigation.

The truth is I have spent the bulk of the month since I came onboard dealing with various offshoots of the Deepwater Horizon

matter, so I am not as fully aware of the Atlantis matter as you

would like me to be, but I will make it my business to become more

knowledgeable about it and am very happy to talk to you further

about it in the near future.

Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Bromwich, I appreciate that response, but I

think it would be useful for you to review the letter that was sent

back on February 20, 2010, signed by 19 Members of Congress, including myself, which provides a very powerful warning about the

consequences of not having an appropriate inspection of the issue

relating to engineering plans at that BP Atlantis platform.

Mr. BROMWICH. I will review that.

Mr. KUCINICH. You understand the concern here. You are dealing

with a catastrophe from the lack of appropriate oversight at Deepwater Horizon. What I am maintaining to you, and what other

Members of Congress have all joined together in asserting, is that

lack of appropriate oversight also exists with respect to a BP

Atlantis platform, which would have even more catastrophic implications than the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

I thank the gentleman. I yield back.

Secretary SALAZAR. If I may, Mr. Chairman. Congressman

Kucinich, I would want to just supplement what Director

Bromwich said by saying, one, the investigation is underway and

he will keep you posted as to the results of the investigation. No.

2, we have sent inspectors out into the Gulf to look at the drilling,

as well as the production platforms, so there is an ongoing inspection effort underway.

And, No. 3, one of the things that should come out of the lessons

learned here is that you cannot have 60 inspectors essentially having the responsibility of conducting the massive job that has been

assigned to these inspectors, and that is why there is a budget

amendment in front of this Congress to try to beef up the level of

inspection and investigation capability within the agency.

Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Chairman, I just want this committee to be

on notice that we have to find out whether BP has certified as-built

drawings on file. This is a serious matter, especially in light of

Deepwater Horizon. Thank you.

Chairman TOWNS. The gentleman’s time has expired.

I now yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Florida, Congressman Mica.

Mr. MICA. Thank you.

Again, we appreciate your being here, Mr. Secretary. I raised

some questions in my couple of minutes of opening statement, and

I think everyone has to be baffled by the administration’s development of policy. You were one of the first people nominated, I think,

42

back by the President. People were pleased we had somebody from

the Congress and your experience in the position.

So you came in in 2009. You had an opportunity to develop budget and policy, I would imagine. I was kind of shocked, again, when

the staff gave me the budget and it showed cuts like $2 million in

the mineral management environmental permit activity that was

proposed by your agency. Did you participate in making decisions

on that?

Again, the primary agency for response in these kinds of disasters would be the Coast Guard. The administration proposed 1,100

positions cut, cutting assets; ships, planes, helicopters, all the

things that you would use in a response. Were you part of the decision to make those cuts either in your agency, maybe not the Coast

Guard?

Secretary SALAZAR. Congressman Mica, with respect to the budget that had been submitted to MMS, you will, if you look at the

10-year history of the budget, there had been erosion within the

Department of Interior MMS, as well as with all——

Mr. MICA. But you were proposing——

Secretary SALAZAR. Well, let me just finish. With respect to the

rest of the other agencies within Interior, including MMS, a very

significant erosion until we came onboard. Now, you will note that

the inspectors that are set forth in the budget for MMS are a significant increase from what had been there in the past. Now, the

question is appropriate, I think, for this committee and for the

Congress is is that number sufficient; and in our view it is not. We

need to have additional capacity.

Mr. MICA. Well, again, all I can go by is the budget. I asked if

you were there when the decision was made to cut the environmental review activities, which also reviewed permits.

Then the next thing is this is February it came out. In March

did you participate in the decision to expand drilling in the Gulf

and other areas?

Secretary SALAZAR. The——

Mr. MICA. Were you consulted? Is there any documentation——

Secretary SALAZAR. Not that I was consulted; it was my decision

and it was my plan, and it is a plan that is a very well thought

out plan relative to moving forward in a thoughtful way that

changes the direction that we are going on in the OCS that does

different things with respect to what was being planned on the Atlantic and does different things than was being planned in Alaska,

and brings in the kinds of environmental reviews that are necessary.

Mr. MICA. Well, again, let’s go to that. You were there when they

issued this one-page permit, and this is the person to drill for BP,

one page. This is backed up by a 500-page cleanup spill plan. I am

sure you didn’t review this.

But you told me that people who were responsible and all were

fired and people changed.

Have we got that organization chart?

The guy that was responsible for signing this, we have two people here, Saucier and then Tolbert signed it for Saucier. He is still

there. That circle there, the yellow thing. So he wasn’t fired. He

43

gave carte blanche. This is the approval for BP to drill and the conditions by which they drill, and it refers to a 500-page document.

That 500-page document my staff tells me it says it has spill provisions for dealing with cleanup for seals, walruses, and polar

bears, none of which I have seen in the Gulf. It looks like all this

was sort of carte blanche approval. Is that what it appears to be?

And is this guy going to get fired? This guy is still making the decisions. This is Saucier, and here is Saucier here making the decision

on implementing the moratorium.

Secretary SALAZAR. Congressman Mica, let me respond with two

points. First, while it is true that there were people who committed

both criminal and ethical conduct that is wrong——

Mr. MICA. And he signed or was responsible for issuing the

permit——

Secretary SALAZAR. Well, hold on, let me finish. Let me finish,

Congressman Mica. The reality of it is that there are many good

people within the agency. There are some bad people. Those are

being dealt with. With respect to the document that you referred

to and with respect to people that were involved concerning the approvals of the Macondo well and what happened there, I have

asked the Inspector General to take a look at that, and the Inspector General——

Chairman TOWNS. The gentleman’s time has expired.

Secretary SALAZAR [continuing]. Will provide us their own independent review, which I would be happy to share, as appropriate,

with members of this committee.

Mr. MICA. I would appreciate a list on the status of those who

were held responsible. Thank you. Maybe we could submit that to

the committee.

Chairman TOWNS. Without objection.

Mr. MICA. Thank you.

Chairman TOWNS. I now yield 5 minutes to the gentlelady from

California, Ms. Speier.

Ms. SPEIER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you to the Secretary and to Mr. Bromwich. A series of

questions. From the outside, there is an ethical crisis at MMS,

whether you change the name or not. There has been a history of

drugs, sex, rock and roll concerts, and I am concerned, based on the

Post article today that says that there is a much higher degree of

revolving door that exists in the oil industry than anywhere else

in that three out of every four lobbyists had some relationship to

the Government. We know there are 12 former employees of MMS

that are now lobbying for the oil industry.

Mr. Bromwich and Mr. Secretary, I would like to know what you

are going to do now to freeze out those 12 former employees from

interacting with MMS.

Mr. BROMWICH. Well, we will certainly make sure that they observe the current ethical rule that exist that restrict their contacts

to some extent. But one of the things I have to do is to gather information from people who have the information. If they happen to be

former employees of the agency, I am not going to exclude them for

that reason, but I am certainly not going to give their information

any more weight than anyone else’s.

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I agree, I read the same article you did and I am troubled by it.

I think what I can tell you and tell the committee, that you will

never see me in that position. I will say right now that I will selfimpose a lifetime ban on contacts with the agency, and I hope that

sets an example for other people in the agency and other people

throughout government. I agree it is unseemly——

Ms. SPEIER. Well, I guess from our perspective can you take action, independent of Congress passing a bill, to restrict former employees from having access to the agency?

Mr. BROMWICH. Well, let me give you an example. I have actually

met with two of the former directors who are now part of trade associations within the last couple weeks.

Ms. SPEIER. But that was at your request.

Mr. BROMWICH. No, it was at their request. But I am in the business right now of trying to gather information from a variety of

sources, including from trade associations, because they have relevant information to provide bearing on some of the issues that the

Secretary and I are working on. I am going to give them a hearing,

but I am also going to give all other groups, including environmental groups, including——

Ms. SPEIER. OK, I understand that. I have a limited amount of

time, so——

Mr. BROMWICH. OK.

Ms. SPEIER. My question was can you act independent of Congress in creating some restrictions around access to the agency

after employees have left.

Mr. BROMWICH. Yes, we can, but——

Ms. SPEIER. All right, thank you.

Mr. BROMWICH [continuing]. We need to do it in a thoughtful

way.

Ms. SPEIER. All right. So you will report back, once you have decided on what you are going to do, to the committee?

Mr. BROMWICH. Sure.

Ms. SPEIER. All right. The GAO report to this committee indicated that the revenue share the Government collects for oil and

gas produced in the Gulf ranks 93rd out of 104 revenue collection

regimes around the world. I think most of us find that stunning

and shocking.

What are you going to do to change that so that the royalties

being received from the Gulf are reflective of the world as a whole,

at least the international average of royalties received around the

world?

Secretary SALAZAR. Congresswoman Speier, let me just say that

the royalty issue in getting a fair return to the American taxpayer

is foremost in our minds. We have been working on it; we are

working on it. We have proposals to change how royalties are in

fact collected to make sure that the American taxpayer is getting

a fair return for royalties not only in the offshore, but also on the

onshore, where you have a circumstance that probably is even

worse, where you still have the same royalty rate that existed since

the 1920 Mineral Leasing Act was passed at 12.5 percent. So we

are making the kinds of changes that will bring in the right level

of royalties and, at the same time, make sure that there is accountability with respect to the auditing functions related to that.

45

Ms. SPEIER. And when will those be put into place and do you

need congressional action to do that?

Secretary SALAZAR. We are already working on it; we are moving

forward with it. It is being put into place as we speak. The elimination of the Royal-in-Kind program was part of that effort and

there are continuing efforts to address the issue.

Ms. SPEIER. That is good news to hear. One last question. My understanding, along with Congressman Mica’s reference, is that this

particular 600-page document was reviewed by two people for a

total of 10 hours. So by anyone’s measurement it was inadequate.

I don’t care if you are a speed reader; there is no way that, in 10

hours, you can give the kind of attention to that document. What

are you doing, moving forward, to make sure the employees doing

that kind of review are both qualified and have adequate amount

of time to do the review?

Secretary SALAZAR. With the reorganization that we have put on

the table and the resources that we have asked from Congress to

be able to do the right kind of work ensuring safety and ensuring

environmental protection should address those issues.

Chairman TOWNS. The gentlelady’s time has expired.

I now yield to the gentleman, Mr. Turner.

Mr. TURNER. Thank you.

Mr. Secretary, I have a few items on a time line that lead up to

the explosion in the oil field and the oil leak, and I would like to

go over those items and get some of your responses to them. We

focus a lot on what happens after the explosion. I would like to

focus on the period leading up to it.

And, Mr. Chairman, I would like this time line included in the

record.

The time line begins with January 29, 2009, and the Secretary

being declared the Secretary; he is appointed on that date and declares himself the new sheriff in town. That is January 2009.

In February 2009, in a site-specific exploration plan filed by BP,

it states that it was ‘‘not required’’ to file a scenario for a potential

blowout of the Deepwater well.

In March 2009, as we have a new sheriff in town, a whistleblower brought forth an issue of a safety breach by BP in the Gulf

of Mexico to the attention of MMS. ‘‘The whistleblower who was

hired to oversee the company’s data bases that housed documents

related to its Atlantis project discovered that the drilling platform

had been operating without a majority of the engineer-approved

documents it needed to run safely. No action was taken by the

agency.’’

But the most important thing was 2 months after the whistleblower came forward, May 2009, MMS fails to perform a standard

monthly inspection of Deepwater Horizon. But what is happening

in the Secretary’s office May 2009? Our Interior Secretary is speaking at the Wind Energy Conference in Chicago.

June 17, 2009, MMS proposes new rules to require oil and gas

operators to develop and implement ‘‘safety environmental management systems for offshore drilling.’’ The rule is still not finalized

1 month and 1 year later.

In June, that same month that these rules were provided but not

finalized, Secretary Salazar hires Sylvia Baca away from BP AmerVerDate 11-MAY-2000 14:17 Mar 25, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00049 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\KATIES\DOCS\63146.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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ica to become his Deputy Assistant Secretary of Lands and Materials Management, according to this time line.

Summer 2009, the MMS awards Transocean’s U.S. Gulf of Mexico operation a safety award for excellence and our Secretary directs MMS to begin focusing on promoting wind energy. Elizabeth

Birnbaum assumes duties as the Director of MMS. The U.S. Times

reported that, ‘‘In particular, she was tasked with handling the politically charged issue of citing the 25 mile cape wind farm off of

Cape Cod.

But what happens the next month, August 2009? MMS fails to

perform a standard monthly inspection of Deepwater Horizon.

August of that same month, at the White House’s request, Secretary Salazar takes a break from your wind energy efforts to begin

the big effort of selling health care reform.

August 2009 you travel throughout the West to tout Obama’s

stimulus plan. I understand from this time line that on August

21st you were in Grand Canyon, South Rim highlighting $10.8 million of stimulus dollars. On August 20th you were in Utah, $3.6

million of stimulus dollars, and August 20th again you were in Oregon on stimulus dollars.

That very next month the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration sends MMS a letter about the offshore drilling proposal,

saying MMS understated environmental impacts of the new drilling proposal.

September 8th of that month Salazar says, during an interview

at Reuters, right now we are focused on health care reform.

In fact, CBS reports, in November 2009, that anticipating a

struggle, the White House deputized Interior Secretary Ken

Salazar and former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle to join

Vice President Joe Biden in trying to clear the way for health care

bills overhaul perform of the next several weeks.

But MMS is busy. MMS has a renewable energy task force meeting in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and New Jersey, and with all

this activity happening in November, what happens in the Gulf in

December? December 2009, MMS fails to perform the standard

monthly inspection of Deepwater Horizon.

They again failed to perform the inspection in January, and then

through a series of notifications that BP provides to the agency, the

specifications from Deepwater are continued to be adjusted; MMS

responding in 7 minutes to one request for a modification, 41⁄2 minutes to another after having routinely not shown up for standard

inspections.

And in April the Deepwater Horizon rig explodes and then sinks,

and I believe the Secretary is there by April 30th, after attending,

on April 27th, participating in a ceremony on wind turbines, April

28th announcing the approval of the Cape Wind Project, and then

your attending in the Gulf to take a look at what has occurred.

Chairman TOWNS. The gentleman’s time——

Mr. TURNER. It sounds like a significant amount of inactivity——

Chairman TOWNS. The gentleman’s time has expired.

Mr. TURNER [continuing]. And I would appreciate your response.

I believe my staff has a copy of the time line which they can also

provide to you.

47

Secretary SALAZAR. Mr. Turner, if I may, Mr. Chairman, respond,

even though the gentleman’s time has expired.

The fact is the U.S. Department of the Interior has a major mission to protect and preserve the natural resources of America, both

onshore as well as offshore, as well as being the custodian of America’s history; and in that mission we work on the set of issues relating to Native Americans and all of the other assignments that we

have within the Department of Interior.

Specifically, with respect to many of the things that you cite in

there, I have spent probably more time on the comprehensive energy program for the Nation that the President and I have been

championing than on almost any other issue. But I can tell you

that within that comprehensive energy plan, which we are confident we will see unfold for this Nation, that you will have a broad

energy portfolio that will include oil and gas and, at the same time,

include the new energy frontier of solar and wind and geothermal,

which we have worked on very hard.

Now, I will say this to you, Mr. Turner, that, without equivocation, we have spent a huge amount of time with respect to all

of the issues relating to MMS, and they have included changing the

ethics culture, moving forward with a new direction on the Outer

Continental Shelf from what was left over from the prior administration, and moving forward standing up a renewable energy program.

So we work hard, we cover a lot of ground, and we have a lot

of ground to cover in the future.

Chairman TOWNS. Thank you very much. The gentleman’s time

has expired.

I now yield 5 minutes to the gentlewoman from California, Ms.

Chu.

Ms. CHU. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

We know that the blowout preventers failed with BP and with

enormously tragic consequences. Now, it is my understanding that

an inspector does not actually have to witness in person the blowout preventer test, but can simply review paperwork from the oil

company operators, and they can basically take their word for it.

We know that these tests can be successfully faked, as illustrated

by several cases. This practice is just unimaginable, and it cuts corners and compromises the oversight mechanism and validity of the

test.

So how will the reorganization of MMS work to improve these inspection practices and what specific improvements do you anticipate making to make this BOP test actually effective? And what

are your thoughts about having these types of tests certified as safe

by independent third-party inspectors that are selected by Federal

regulators, and not the oil companies?

Secretary SALAZAR. Congresswoman Chu, it is a very good question and it is something which we have been working on. It really

relates to two parts of the reforms within the OCS. The first of

those is having the right standards in place, and many of those

standards were set forth in the 30-day report which President

Obama directed that I deliver to him. Many of those standards are

now being implemented with respect to the notice to lessees that

Director Bromwich spoke about a little bit earlier.

48

And then, finally, with respect to the enforcement of those standards, there needs to be a significantly beefed up effort with respect

to the agency’s inspection capabilities, because right now it is a

fool’s errand to think that 60 inspectors can essentially go out and

inspect all of the different OCS facilities, including production facilities, that are out there.

Ms. CHU. So you will be coming forth with new regulations pertaining to this particular practice?

Secretary SALAZAR. Yes.

Ms. CHU. Well, then it leads to another question, which is about

new regulations. One of the problems with the current regulatory

system is that it takes a long time for any improvements. In fact,

it took 9 years for regulations related to pipeline safety to work its

way through the process and take effect. So how will the reorganization of MMS work to resolve this issue of this delayed implementation of new and necessary regulations?

Secretary SALAZAR. Well, the reorganization itself, there will be

two parts to essentially dealing with the Outer Continental Shelf

beyond the revenue side, and one of them will be to manage the

resource; the other unit will be to provide the safety and enforcement. And we will make sure that we are moving forward to address all the issues and all the lessons to be learned from this tragedy.

Ms. CHU. But my question is how long will it take and what will

you do to make sure that it is accelerated?

Secretary SALAZAR. Congresswoman Chu, I think some people

might say that we should have waited for another 6 months, 8

months until we found out exactly all of the results of all the investigations. Our view from day one has been that we would work on

the issue as fast as we can, so the 30-day report that was delivered

to the President is a report that has many rules and requirements

and standards which are already being implemented, some of them

through notice to lessees and some of them through rulemaking

that will be conducted by Director Bromwich.

Ms. CHU. And, finally, let me ask this. Under Interior Department regulations, oil companies use models developed by MMS to

predict the likelihood of oil reaching the shore following a spill. In

the Deepwater Horizon case these models incorrectly predicted that

there was a zero percent likelihood of oil reaching most shores in

Florida, Alabama, and Louisiana. It suggests, of course, that these

models are outdated and that the regulations relating to the oil response plans need to be revisited.

So my question is does MMS need to reexamine all of these oil

spill response plans, particularly with regard to these kinds of predictions, which are clearly incorrect and way off? And how will the

MMS reorganization help this process?

Secretary SALAZAR. The answer is yes on drilling safety and containment measures and oil spill responsibilities, and I would like

Director Bromwich to comment on it as well.

Mr. BROMWICH. You are quite right, Congresswoman, that the oil

spill response plans are plainly inadequate, and that is one subject

on which I am going to be gathering information on the public forums that we are going to be holding over the next month and a

half, with an eye toward not only insisting in the short-term, before

49

any new regulations are implemented, that those oil spill response

plans be substantially revised if they are going to pass muster, but

also, with an eye toward getting out new regulations in the future,

we will make sure that is the standard from now on.

Ms. CHU. And you are reviewing all the oil response plans?

Mr. BROMWICH. Yes.

Chairman TOWNS. The gentlelady’s time has expired.

I now yield to the gentleman from Tennessee, and let me also

wish him happy birthday.

Mr. DUNCAN. Well, I have the honor of sharing a birthday yesterday with the chairman, and he sent me a note saying that he

thinks we should make it a national holiday, and that was a very

nice note.

Mr. Secretary, thank you for coming here. I have sat through

hearings in the Transportation Committee and the Resources Committee on the BP oil spill, and in both of those hearings witnesses

have mentioned that over 40,000 wells have been drilled in the

Gulf since 1960, and my staff got some information from your Department earlier today saying since 1947 more than 50,000 wells

have been drilled in the Gulf of Mexico.

Would you not agree it is almost an astonishingly safe, clean history that we have there in the Gulf? I mean, there has never been

anything even close to this BP spill. In fact, I am told there are

more spills out of ships than there are from these rigs.

Secretary SALAZAR. Congressman Duncan, I agree with you. In

fact, I think it was that history of safety over all of those times,

50,000 wells, which essentially was the empirical foundation upon

which the national framework has been built with respect to oil

and gas production in the Outer Continental Shelf.

Mr. DUNCAN. And I am told that there are now 3,600 structures

in the Gulf right now.

Governor Engler wrote a column for the Washington Times a few

weeks ago, and the headline says, Drilling Moratorium Is A Jobs

Moratorium. And he said this, he said, the moratorium immediately shut down 33 deepwater rigs in the Gulf, including 22 near

Louisiana. This action could cost 3,000 to 6,000 Louisiana jobs in

the next 2 to 3 weeks, and potentially 20,000 by the end of next

year. For every one employee on an oil rig, there are nine employees onshore supporting that one employee.

That is my main concern, because not only did I read this by

Governor Engler, but repeatedly I have seen on the news reports

these oil workers in the Gulf area almost in a panic situation about

all the thousands of jobs that are being destroyed or potentially

could be destroyed.

Secretary SALAZAR. Congressman Duncan, let me just say that

we too are concerned, and we are aware of the issues. Our view

and my view in issuing the moratorium is that it was the right way

to move forward, to put the pause button in place until we can answer three fundamental questions: drilling safety, blowout containment capability, as well as oil spill response capability.

If we were to have another blowout in the Gulf of Mexico today

or next week, we could not have the oil spill response capability to

deal with those blowouts. The effort which Exxon and Shell and

Chevron and Conoco Phillips came up with yesterday is a beginVerDate 11-MAY-2000 14:17 Mar 25, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00053 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\KATIES\DOCS\63146.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
50

ning point of that conversation relative to how we address one of

those three fundamental issues, and Director Bromwich’s set of

meetings and hearings around the country will help us answer

those three fundamental questions so that we can determine how

to move forward with respect to the pause button in place.

Mr. DUNCAN. On another point, Charles Krauthammer, the columnist and commentator who I think almost everybody agrees,

even if they don’t agree with him, they think he is one of the

smartest men in this city, he wrote recently, he said, ‘‘environmental chic has driven us out there.’’ He asks the question why we

were drilling in 5,000 feet of water in the first place, and he says,

‘‘Environmental chic has driven us out there. Environmentalists

have succeeded in rendering the Pacific and nearly all the Atlantic

coast off limits to oil production and, of course, in the safest of all

places, on land, we have had a 30-year ban in the Arctic wildlife

refuge.’’

I have seen articles that say something like 83 or 84 percent of

the Outer Continental Shelf is off limits to oil production, and that

also is a concern of mine.

Then, finally, before my time runs out, I see the yellow light on,

I would say to Mr. Bromwich I am concerned we have changed the

name and there seems to be a goal of emphasizing enforcement,

and I am just wondering are we going to have a gotcha type agency

now? Let’s forget about BP; let’s consider them a bad actor. But

most of these companies are doing a good job and complying with

all the laws.

Mr. BROMWICH. I agree with you. We are not going to have a

gotcha culture, but we are going to have clear rules and we are

going to have aggressive inspections, and violations of those clear

rules will be dealt with severely. I think that is the right kind of

regulatory regime to have.

Mr. DUNCAN. And if you find a violation, are you going to give

the company a chance to correct it, or are you going to immediately

come down on them and just shut them down?

Mr. BROMWICH. That is a very fact-specific determination. We

will have to take it on a case-by-case basis.

Mr. DUNCAN. All right.

Chairman TOWNS. The gentleman’s time has expired.

I now recognize the gentleman from Maryland, Congressman

Cummings.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Secretary Salazar, I head up the Coast Guard Subcommittee on

the Transportation Committee and one of the things that we were

concerned about is what role do you all see the Coast Guard playing in the future. You know, the legislation passed by the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure will require a much more

significant role for the Coast Guard in their approval of oil spill response plans, which is crucial given that the Coast Guard is responsible for managing the response to the spills.

So what steps, if any, are MMS and the Coast Guard taking now

to strengthen the role of the Coast Guard? And, by the way, that

has been one of their complaints, that they are asked to be responsible for overseeing the cleanup, but they don’t have enough say in

51

creating the plan. Did you know that? They have actually testified

to that. Either one of you.

Secretary SALAZAR. Congressman Cummings, if I may, the role

that we have seen playing out with respect to the response to the

Deepwater Horizon blowout and the BP oil spill has been one

where we have been working hand-in-hand with Admiral Allen as

the national incident commander, and it has been continuous. You

know, we will look back at the Deepwater Horizon tragedy and look

at the lessons learned, including the capacities that are out there

with respect to the Coast Guard and others, but the fact of the

matter is that the relationship in terms of the structure that has

been set up to respond to the oil spill response has worked well between Interior and the Coast Guard and other agencies that are

also involved.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Well, I have to tell you, again, we have had testimony within, I would say, the last 3 weeks, and I will get you that

information, and this is not Admiral Allen, where they have told

us that they want they want more say in the development of the

emergency response plan because they just feel like, by the time

you are going to call on them to oversee the cleanup, they should

be more involved in it at the beginning. So I will get that to you.

You might want to take a look at that.

Secretary SALAZAR. Let me just say——

Mr. CUMMINGS. I am surprised you didn’t know that.

Secretary SALAZAR. No, I do know it. Let me just say this, Congressman Cummings. The fact is that the oil spill response issue

is one of the three most central issues that we are looking at, and

that issue will necessarily involve, should involve and will involve,

I will make sure that it happens, a close collaboration with the

Coast Guard, because we are not going to move forward until we

have an assuredness with respect to the adequacy of oil spill response plans.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Now, Mr. Secretary, although the Deepwater Horizon was registered in the Republic of the Marshall Islands, Captain Hennin, the Deputy Commissioner of Maritime Affairs with

the Republic of the Marshall Islands, is reported to have testified

before the joint MMS-Coast Guard panel examining this accident

that the RMI, as a flag state, did not inspect the drilling equipment

and systems on the Deepwater. He reportedly indicated that such

inspections are left up to the MMS. And we understand that MMS

often relies on offshore facility operators to perform key safety tests

and that MMS inspectors only review the paperwork associated

with the test.

How can we make sure that we have adequate approval of these

reports, because there is a question of inspection, that some of the

inspections are not actually done by our people, but they are done

by the Marshall Island folks and people that they contract. So how

can we guarantee that those inspections which are so important

are properly done?

Secretary SALAZAR. Let me say first there were inspections that

were conducted of the Deepwater Horizon, including inspections in

April and testings, including of the oil preventer, that occurred in

the days leading up to the explosion. Second, we will have a significantly more robust inspection regime and is part of what Director

52

Bromwich will be working on, and he may want to comment on

that.

Mr. BROMWICH. No, that is absolutely right. That is one of the

things we are going to be focusing on most intently. Important inspections can’t be paper inspections; they need to be done by

human beings and they need to be done by human beings with experience, demonstrated competence, and an arm’s length relationship, at least, to the entities that own the facilities.

Mr. CUMMINGS. I see my time is up. Thank you very much.

Ms. NORTON [presiding]. The Secretary has to leave at 12, and

I am going to try to get in as many Members as we can before they

have to leave to go to vote.

Mr. Burton, 5 minutes.

Mr. BURTON. Mr. Secretary, you know, 50,000 wells have been

drilled in the Gulf without a problem, and yet the President put

a moratorium on the drilling. As a result, you have had some of

the rigs go to Egypt, to the Congo, Brazzaville. In Canada they are

talking about new wells being drilled up to 6,500 feet in the Arctic

waters.

So we are going to lose a lot of those rigs and they probably

won’t come back, at least not for a long, long time. It makes no

sense to me to cutoff the drilling in the Gulf when you have not

had any real problems except for this one catastrophe, and I just

don’t understand why the administration is taking this carte

blanche approach. Can you explain that?

Secretary SALAZAR. Congressman Burton, having been involved

in this matter in response to the Deepwater Horizon blowout every

single day since the blowout, I can tell you that there are three

fundamental questions that have to be answered before we take

our hand off the pause button, and those are the issues of drilling

safety, oil well blowout containment, as well as oil spill response

capacities. And that is what we are working with Director

Bromwich, as well as with a whole host of other efforts.

Mr. BURTON. Well, you have already stated that there is more of

a chance of a leak from a tanker than there is from one of these

rigs. It just doesn’t make any sense, with a 50,000 drilling of wells

in the Gulf and you have one spill, that you are going to cutoff everything. And the rigs are already moving to Brazzaville and the

Congo.

In Brazil, we just sent $1 billion down to Brazil to help them

drill in deepwater areas. So what we are doing, in effect, is shoving

oil production away from the United States and we are costing us

jobs when there is really no reason for it except for this one exception. And what you are talking about, in my opinion, really doesn’t

make a great deal of sense.

Now I want to ask a couple other questions real quick. I have

a video I would like to show to you real quick; it is about 15 seconds long.

So can you cue up that video?

[Video played.]

Mr. BURTON. This is Deano Bonano, who is the Homeland Security Director down there and the fire chief, Mark Scardino. They

said that you have never been down to that parish, and it is one

53

of the most toxic areas that has been hit since this spill took place.

Why haven’t you been down there?

Secretary SALAZAR. Congressman Burton, first of all, I believe

that the last count that I saw had 11 times that I have been in

one of the Gulf Coast States or in Houston.

Mr. BURTON. Have you been to this parish? This is one of the

hardest hit.

Secretary SALAZAR. I have been through Louisiana, Alabama,——

Mr. BURTON. Have you been to this parish?

Secretary SALAZAR [continuing]. Mississippi, Florida. I don’t

know the exact parish-by-parish, but let me just say that since

April 20th, and even before that, I spent a lot of time in the Gulf

Coast, and I continue to spend a lot of time down there, and will,

and we will work relentlessly on this problem until we get it fixed

and we chart the ways forward. And I will just say, Congressman

Burton——

Mr. BURTON. It seems like this would have been one of the top

priorities. I don’t understand why you weren’t there. And they were

complaining very vigorously that you had ignored their problems

there.

Secretary SALAZAR. The President, the Vice President, and members of the Cabinet have been down there countless times. My Assistant Secretary——

Mr. BURTON. Well, you are the guy.

Secretary SALAZAR. My Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife

has taken 17 trips down into that area to deal with these issues.

Mr. BURTON. Well, Mr. Secretary, you are the guy. You should

have been there, in my opinion.

Now, the last thing I want to ask is I know the Jones Act was

referred to. There were a number of countries that wanted to bring

skimmers in as soon as this thing took place. We could have eliminated an awful lot of these ecological problems if those skimmers

had been brought in. Why in the world didn’t we let all these other

countries bring those skimmers in as quickly as possible?

Secretary SALAZAR. Mr. Burton, I disagree with you. The fact is

the Jones Act has not kept a single vessel from coming into the

country, No. 1.

Mr. BURTON. Well, then why weren’t the skimmers brought in?

Secretary SALAZAR. The shortage of skimming vessels has not

been an issue and the Jones Act has not been an issue.

Mr. BURTON. Why weren’t those skimmers brought in from other

countries? Why weren’t they allowed in?

Secretary SALAZAR. They were brought in as they were required,

and Thad Allen and the national incident commander have been in

charge.

Mr. BURTON. After, what, 70 days?

Ms. NORTON. The gentleman’s time has expired.

Mr. Driehaus, 5 minutes.

Mr. DRIEHAUS. Thank you, Madam Chair.

My intent wasn’t to rebut my Republican colleagues in this hearing, but given what was just said about the exception of this disaster, it is like suggesting that 9/11 was an exception to air traffic

control regulations and that we shouldn’t react to that. The fact is

this has been an environmental disaster, and the fact is that we

54

should look at the regulation appropriately of oil wells in the Gulf,

and I think it is very appropriate that the administration take the

steps that it has to make sure that all of the wells are safe.

I further heard my Republican colleagues suggest that it is limitations on onshore drilling in other parts of the country that is

driving BP and others to go to the Gulf. I assume that they are

making money in the Gulf; that the reason we have all these wells

in the Gulf is because there is oil there and they are making

money. Is that correct?

Secretary SALAZAR. That is correct.

Mr. DRIEHAUS. So the reason that BP and the other oil companies are in fact drilling is because they are making a profit in the

Gulf.

Secretary SALAZAR. That is correct.

Mr. DRIEHAUS. I would like to move on. And I think the issue

here is one that is important, and it dates back to the 2005 Energy

Act and the issue of categorical exclusions. I am concerned, as are

others, with regard to the number of categorical exclusions that we

have seen for wells in the Gulf, and I would appreciate if you

would help us better understand how categorical exclusions are determined and whether or not BP advocated aggressively for categorical exclusions for its drilling operations in the Gulf.

Secretary SALAZAR. Congressman, let me just say, first of all, just

back on the moratorium, it is a prudent position that we have

taken, and I appreciate the support that you echo for that moratorium because of these fundamental issues that we do need to have

addressed.

Second, with respect to your question on categorical exclusions,

they appear at a time, after significant environmental analysis has

been done because the process is that, in developing a 5-year plan,

you do an environmental impact statement. Before you have a

lease sale, there is another environmental impact statement that

is reviewed. So there are a series of reviews that happen.

Now, the categorical exclusions, in part, in the Gulf of Mexico,

which have been granted more than BP, those occur in large part

because there is a 30-day window of approval required by statute

when an exploration plan itself is filed as part of the leasing and

development process. So we have asked the Congress to extend

that 30-day window to a 90-day window, and I hope that it is something that you enact in the oil spill legislation that is before you.

Mr. DRIEHAUS. When you say that 30-day window is in statute,

when was that 30-day window implemented and why was it implemented, why was it only 30 days, and who advocated for the 30-

day window?

Secretary SALAZAR. I do not have the specifics on when that requirement was put into the law, but I can get that for you.

Mr. DRIEHAUS. What is your opinion as to how long it should be

for the review? You said 90 days. Is 90 days appropriate?

Secretary SALAZAR. Thirty days I believe is too short, and I do

think that what we need to do, especially in places like the Gulf

of Mexico, you have tremendous environmental information and reviews that have already been conducted, so we just need to make

sure that the environmental reviews that are being conducted are

worthwhile and that we are doing the right thing in terms of the

55

aim of the environmental analysis, which is to understand what

impacts there will be to the environment from the activity.

Mr. DRIEHAUS. Do you believe that there has been an overuse of

categorical exclusions under the previous administration and the

30-day window is a primary cause of that?

Secretary SALAZAR. I do believe that there was an overuse of the

categorical exclusions and, indeed, with respect to what we have already done on the onshore under the Bureau of Land Management

is we have changed that practice, and obviously we are now conducting a comprehensive review with the Council of Environmental

Quality relative to the environmental reviews and changes that

need to happen with respect to OCS.

Mr. DRIEHAUS. Thank you, Madam Chair. I yield back.

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Murphy.

Mr. MURPHY. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I know we

are about to go to votes and, Secretary Salazar, you have been

great to spend so much time with us. I appreciate your measured

response to Mr. Burton’s question. I think we could be here for

days on end if we were going to play videos of single individuals

who are upset that one particular Federal official didn’t visit them.

I think we are very lucky to have you in this position. So many of

us have been impressed by your immediate and robust response to

this tragedy.

Mr. Bromwich, you have a reputation as a no-nonsense administrator in everything you have done, and I think you are the right

guy for the job.

I just have a couple quick questions, one relevant to funding

sources moving forward. The reorganization, as you split into three

different entities, is going to require more people in and of itself;

three directors, maybe three offices of congressional relations. We

know that we need more people to do the inspection work. As you

look down the road at how you think the agency should be funded

and you look at a potential diminishing reliance on royalty payments, how do you expect that, moving forward, the new functions

of these agencies are going to be funded?

Secretary SALAZAR. Congressman Murphy, thank you for your

comments. We are in the midst of working with the appropriators

in developing the budget amendments to make sure that the funding is there to be able to do the job. The funding sources themselves and where they will come from, that will be part of that discussion that we will engage with Congress on.

Mr. MURPHY. And with respect to royalty payments, do you have

ideas today as to what components will continue to be funded by

royalty payments or what components you no longer want to be

funded with respect to royalty payments?

Secretary SALAZAR. That is part of the review that we currently

have underway in the implementation programs that we are developing.

Mr. MURPHY. Maybe I will direct this question to Mr. Bromwich,

but I would be happy to have the Secretary weigh in as well. One

of the things that has been a great frustration to us is the technology that we are using right now to deal with this spill, and the

fact that we have had a fairly slow pace of innovation within the

industry in developing new technologies to address spills. Maybe it

56

is moving a lot faster right now as we speak, but over a long period

of time it has been relatively slow given the threat.

Can you talk a little bit about how you foresee, either within

your agency or in putting pressure on the industry, how do we

more quickly advance oil spill disaster mitigation technology, oil

spill response technology going forward?

Mr. BROMWICH. Yes, it is a very good question. I think one of the

things that this disaster has focused people’s attention on generally

is the lack of advances in containment technologies, as well as in

oil spill response technologies. That has not only been recognized

by Secretary Salazar and me and many others; it has been recognized by players in the industry, and I think that is one of the reasons why, yesterday, we saw the four largest majors come forward

with the outlines of a plan to deal with oil spill containment in the

Gulf of Mexico.

I think that this disaster has focused people’s energies; it will

stimulate innovation. We will obviously be directly involved in that

process. The proposal that was made yesterday is an interesting

one, it is an intriguing one, but we are going to want to review and

study it carefully. We will ask for more elaboration on it by the

companies. It is one that not only we, but you and the American

public is going to need to have confidence in.

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Issa for 5 minutes.

Mr. ISSA. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Just one quick question. You know, Mr. Secretary, that your decision was, by definition, for 6 months of a moratorium, arbitrary.

In light of what you said earlier today, would you say that resources that are freed up at the time of the kill of this well could

just as easily be the end of the moratorium? As you said earlier,

clearly there were resources that you didn’t want to have not available if something, one in 50,000 wells, happened a second time, but

wouldn’t a target of the killing of this well be just as appropriate

for considering limited well supervised rolling back into exploration

of the existing 22 rigs?

Secretary SALAZAR. Congressman Issa, I appreciate your observation and I also appreciate the sense of urgency that you have that

these issues be addressed, but let me say there is a tremendous

amount of work that is unfolding. I will have a report back from

the Oversight Safety Board, which I established, which includes

great work from the Inspector General and her staff that are focused in on some of these safety issues. That is due, I believe, on

August 15th.

The National Academy of Engineering arm of the National Academy of Sciences will have an interim report for me by October 31st;

and obviously the multiple investigations that are underway are informing us. So if there is a point in time between now and November 30th where the three fundamental questions that I have already addressed are addressed to our satisfaction, we will revisit

that time line for the moratorium.

Mr. ISSA. I appreciate that.

I yield the balance of the time to Mr. Fortenberry.

Mr. FORTENBERRY. Thank you, Mr. Secretary, for joining us

today, and Mr. Bromwich. This oil spill is an environmental catastrophe. BP was a reckless actor and clearly all of us must work toVerDate 11-MAY-2000 14:17 Mar 25, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00060 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\KATIES\DOCS\63146.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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gether to ensure three things: that this leak is continued to be

stopped, that the environment is cleaned up, and that we work

with all the resources we have to ensure that this never happens

again.

In that regard, I think Mr. Issa has made a reasonable point and

you have answered it reasonably, that your reasoning for the moratorium is that our resources are currently deployed and perhaps

depleted, and in case there was a second spill or catastrophe like

this, we would not have the sources to work against it. But given

that there is the potential for this leak to be permanently stopped

in the near term, your consideration of that factor in terms of the

moratorium deadlines I think is reasonable.

The second point, though, being given that the resources that are

applied are under intense pressure to potentially move overseas,

and that this would cause more imported oil to come into our waters, more tankers, which are inherently more environmentally

dangerous than the drilling itself, is the moratorium time line potentially more risky?

A related point is that all drilling is not the same. Now, BP was

clearly engaged in the riskiest type of drilling. There is partial

drilling, there is development drilling. Is there a consideration that

those may be exempted as well, given that their risk profile is

lower?

Secretary SALAZAR. Congressman, the answer to that is yes, and

that is part of what Director Bromwich will be gathering information on. There may be different activities and different zones of risk

that might be allowed to go forward. We have already made one

of those findings with respect to the shallow water drilling and

there may be others as we move forward.

Mr. FORTENBERRY. So a segmentation of risk, risk profiling based

upon the actual historical analysis of risk based upon the type of

drilling, rather than a blanket moratorium——

Secretary SALAZAR. There may be, for example, Congressman,

the differentiation between the exploration wells in the deepwater

and wells that are being drilled into already developed reservoirs,

where you know exactly what it is that you are drilling into, as opposed to the exploratory type of wells which the Macondo well was

one. So those are the kinds of distinctions that we will be taking

a look at in the months ahead.

Mr. FORTENBERRY. Well, I think the last thing we want to do is

increase pressures for more imported oil, which puts more tankers

into our water, which, again, traditionally has a higher environmental risk of spillage than the drilling operations.

With that said, I also would like to point out that I visited the

area recently, one of the coastal communities. These people are exhausting themselves trying to save their land, save their way of

life, and save the environment. I think you have heard——

Ms. NORTON. The gentleman’s time has expired.

Mr. FORTENBERRY. I have a good video for you, Mr. Secretary,

but we will have to do it another time.

Ms. NORTON. Mrs. Maloney.

Mrs. MALONEY. Thank you, Madam Chair.

And I thank Secretary Salazar and Mr. Bromwich for your testimony. The devastation of the BP oil spill has highlighted many

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problems in worker safety and containment and oversight, but it

has especially highlighted the mismanagement of the MMS, the

Minerals and Management Service agency, which, if managed appropriately, could literally bring in millions, if not billions, to our

Treasury from oil extracted from land owned by the American people.

Under the current structure, the Government Accountability Office has found that the MMS should do a great deal more to improve the accuracy of the data used to collect and verify the oil royalties. I have a bill in, H.R. 1462, which would require the National

Academy of Engineering to study and come forward with improvements and recommendations of ways that we could more accurately

collect the royalties on the production of oil. I would like, Mr. Secretary, if you would review it, and certainly this could be helpful

in defining it in a way that we could be more successful in giving

the American people, the taxpayers, their just reward or their just

revenues from this oil.

According also to the Government Accountability Office report

that was given to this committee, the revenue share that the Government collects from oil and gas produced in the Gulf ranks 93rd,

among the lowest, of the 104 revenue collection regimes around the

world. Is that an accurate statement? Are we 93rd in collection?

Secretary SALAZAR. I cannot comment on that statistic, but I will

say this, that we have been implementing many of the recommendations from the Government Accountability Office, as well

as recommendations that came forth from the Kerry-Garns Commission, that addressed many of these issues, and at the end of the

day what we are looking at is to achieve the objective which you

outlined, which is to make sure that we are getting a fair return

back to the American taxpayer, and we would be delighted to take

a look at your bill.

Mrs. MALONEY. Did you testify earlier that this has not been updated since the 1920’s, in your statement?

Secretary SALAZAR. No, I did not. That was a referral to the royalty rate that is established under the 1920 Mineral Leasing Act

with respect to onshore oil and gas leasing, and that is something

which we have been reviewing and do believe it should be changed.

Mrs. MALONEY. So that has not been updated since the 1920’s.

We certainly should look at that and bring it into the 21st century.

Also, the GAO report reported that MMS does not audit oil and

gas company royalty numbers. Is that correct? At this point. That

was the GAO report.

Secretary SALAZAR. There are auditing functions that do occur

and, in fact, that is why we go back and do collections from companies where they have underpaid, and that does happen on an ongoing basis. But, as I said, we are in the process of implementing numerous recommendations that have come from GAO, the several

commissions, as well as recommendations from our Inspector General.

Mrs. MALONEY. But is it fair to say that we could be under-collecting by millions, possibly billions in this royalty program?

Secretary SALAZAR. I think it is fair to say that there is undercollection that is taking place, and it really revolves around two

key issues. One of them is the measurements relative to the oil and

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gas that is being produced against which the royalties are being

levied; and, second, the royalty level itself, and whether or not that

is the appropriate royalty level.

Mrs. MALONEY. And that is what my bill would look at, to look

at more accurate measurements and compare with other countries.

They are calling me to a vote, but this is an important area and

we need to move into the 21st century. Why in the world are we

rated so low, 93rd in the world, in the royalty payments coming

from the Gulf? And did you testify earlier that you had written BP

for royalty payments of $5 billion? Is that what you said?

Secretary SALAZAR. No. There was an underpayment by BP with

respect to onshore activities in the West. The royalty program now

in effect in the——

Mrs. MALONEY. How much was their underpayment?

Ms. NORTON. The gentlewoman’s time has expired.

Mrs. MALONEY. Can he answer that question? May I ask for——

Secretary SALAZAR. As I recall, and it has been several weeks

ago, I think for that particular issue it was about $5 million.

Mrs. MALONEY. $5 million. Thank you.

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Salazar, I announced that you had to leave at

noon, and I will abide by that and not even ask my own question.

I know that you understand, as a former Member of Congress,

when bells ring, but I know I speak for the chairman when I thank

you and Mr. Bromwich for very important testimony here today.

The hearing is in recess until after the vote.

[Recess.]

Chairman TOWNS [presiding]. I would like to reconvene and welcome our distinguished second panel. As with the first panel, of

course, it is committee policy to swear in all of our witnesses, so

before you sit, Ms. Randolph, let me have you stand and raise your

right hands.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Chairman TOWNS. You may be seated.

Let the record reflect that all the witnesses answered in the affirmative.

Mr. Frank Rusco is the Director of the Government Accountability Office of the Natural Resources and Environment Team. Mr.

Rusco has been at GAO for 11 years and his work there focuses on

energy issues, including oil and gas royalty collection and policy.

We want to welcome you to the committee.

Ms. Mary Kendall has been at the Department of Interior Office

of the Inspector General since 1999, when she first served as Deputy Inspector General. Ms. Kendall became Acting Director in

2009. Before joining the Inspector General’s Office, Ms. Kendall

served as an attorney at the Environmental Protection Agency for

over a decade. We welcome you to the committee.

Ms. Danielle Brian has been the executive director of the Project

On Government Oversight since 1993. Ms. Brian has led numerous

investigations that have exposed wasteful government spending

and helped bring policy reform to government programs. We also

welcome you to the committee.

Ms. Randolph is the parish president for Lafourche. As well as

serving as parish president, Ms. Randolph is the owner of a public

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relations and advertising company and was previously an editor at

the Lafourche Gazette. We welcome you.

At this time, I ask that each witness deliver their 5 minute testimony, which will allow us an opportunity to raise questions with

you.

Let me just sort of go through the procedure. You start out, the

light is on green; then it goes to yellow, which means you have a

minute to sum up; and then, of course, it is on red. Then, at that

time, the Members will raise questions with you.

So I would like to begin with you, Mr. Rusco, for your 5 minutes,

and just come right down the line. Again, we welcome you to the

committee, Mr. Rusco. You may begin.

STATEMENTS OF FRANK RUSCO, DIRECTOR, NATURAL RESOURCES AND THE ENVIRONMENT, GAO; MARY L. KENDALL,

ACTING INSPECTOR GENERAL, OFFICE OF INSPECTOR GENERAL, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR; DANIELLE

BRIAN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, PROJECT ON GOVERNMENT

OVERSIGHT; AND CHARLOTTE RANDOLPH, PRESIDENT,

LAFOURCHE PARISH

STATEMENT OF FRANK RUSCO

Mr. RUSCO. Thank you, Chairman Towns, members of the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to speak today about Interior’s reorganization of the Minerals Management Service.

This reorganization takes place in the context of the disastrous

Deepwater oil spill, and it is hoped that some of the proposed

changes to Interior’s management of oil and gas will reduce the

risks of future spills. It is also important, however, to recognize

that Interior faces multiple challenges in effectively and efficiently

managing its Federal oil and gas program.

Over the past 5 years, GAO and others have evaluated many aspects of Interior’s management of oil and gas production on Federal

lands and waters and have found many deficiencies. As a result,

we have recommended numerous changes to the program.

In fairness, Interior has responded to many of these recommendations with actions that we hope will result in improved efficiency and effectiveness. Many specific challenges remain, however, and we hope that Interior will keep its focus on addressing

the deficiencies we have found, even as it undergoes organizational

change.

The findings and recommendations from GAO’s recent evaluations are detailed in my written statement for the record. In the

remainder of my oral comments, I want to discuss three key examples that illustrate a fundamental challenge for Interior. While

each of the examples come from separate evaluations and will require separate actions to resolve, I hope that my discussion will

make it clear that all three share an important common thread.

Specifically, each of these problems illustrates the importance to

Interior of keeping up with and adapting to change.

First, until recently, Interior had gone over 25 years without fundamentally reevaluating its approach to leasing oil and gas properties. When we evaluated Interior’s lease management practices,

we found that Interior did less than other resource owners to enVerDate 11-MAY-2000 14:17 Mar 25, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00064 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\KATIES\DOCS\63146.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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courage diligent development. Specifically, other resource owners

did more than Interior to require or incentivize rapid development

of promising oil and gas leases, while offering more time for development of less promising or more speculative leases.

Second, until recently, Interior had gone for over 20 years without fundamentally reevaluating its approach to collecting revenue

for oil and gas production. When we evaluated Interior’s approach

in the context of what other resource owners do, we found that the

Federal Government collected among the lowest levels of revenue

from over 100 systems evaluated.

Further, we found that because Interior’s revenue collection system was inflexible to changes in oil and gas prices, that Interior

was at an increased risk of succumbing to ad hoc changes to royalties in response to price changes. For example, in the mid-1990’s,

low oil and gas prices and pressure from oil companies led to royalty relief for deepwater leases. With the subsequent increase in oil

and gas prices, this royalty relief will cost the Federal Government

billions of dollars of lost revenue over the lifetime of the affected

leases.

Finally, in recent evaluations, we found that Interior’s oil and

gas program utilizes data systems that are mutually incompatible,

lack key functionality, and lag far behind similar systems used by

industry. This poses risk to the effective and efficient management

of the oil and gas program, and the collection of revenues. Part of

the cause of these problems is that the IT systems were developed

in a piecemeal fashion over a long period of time, with little to no

centralized oversight or planning.

We are encouraged that Interior has begun recently to reevaluate

its leasing policies, its revenue collection, and that Interior recognizes it faces significant IT challenges. However, the potential for

future management problems will remain until and unless Interior

adopts an effective risk-based approach that periodically evaluates

and adapts to changes in the oil and gas industry, the practices of

other resource owners, the IT environment, as well as other significant facets of oil and gas management.

There is risk inherent in all activities, and completely eliminating the risk associated with oil and gas development is not possible. However, if Interior builds risk management into its internal

structure and applies it consistently to important management decisions over time, it can do much better at identifying risk and

mitigating that risk to the extent possible. This is true regardless

of how Interior is ultimately restructured, and Interior will not be

fully successful until it addresses this fundamental challenge.

This concludes my oral statement. I would be happy to answer

any questions the committee may have.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Rusco follows:]

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Chairman TOWNS. Thank you very much for your statement.

Ms. Kendall.

STATEMENT OF MARY L. KENDALL

Ms. KENDALL. Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to

testify today about the proposed reorganization of the Minerals

Management Service. As you well know, we have identified in

MMS programmatic weaknesses and some egregious misconduct.

In the report released in May of this year, we found more of the

same. Although the misconduct is considerably less salacious than

that in our report issued in 2008 about misconduct in the Royaltyin-Kind program, both highlight a challenge that the successor

agencies to MMS face, that is, the potential conflicts of a regulatory

body that is inherently tied to the industry it regulates.

I am concerned about the environment in which these Federal

employees operate and the ease with which they move between industry and Government. I am also concerned about the conduct of

industry representatives. That they should think it permissible to

fraternize and provide Federal Government employees with gifts

after all the media coverage about this practice is somewhat hard

to fathom, but may be informed by the environment as well.

While not included in our May 2010 report, we discovered that

the individuals involved in the fraternizing and gift exchange, both

Government and industry, have often known one another since

childhood. Their relationships were formed well before they joined

industry or Government. MMS has relied upon the ability to hire

employees with industry experience.

With the announcement that MMS will be reorganized, the Department is poised to reconsider some of our recommendations for

programmatic improvement. These must, however, be bolstered

with an emphasis on ethics to include controls and strong oversight.

Let me focus on the last element of strong oversight. In the fall

of 2008, Inspector General Earl Devaney testified before the House

Committee on Natural Resources, which is a correction to my written testimony, describing what was then a fledgling office within

the Office of Inspector General, now called our Royalty Initiatives

Group. Since that time, we have also established an investigative

unit dedicated to energy issues and have expanded our oversight

coverage beyond MMS to the energy and minerals programs at the

Bureau of Land Management.

Until recently, these two offices have been dedicated to royaltiesrelated oversight and improvements. Since the events of April 20th,

however, it has become increasingly clear that we must expand

their scope to provide oversight of the operational, environmental,

safety, inspection, and enforcement aspects of energy production on

Federal lands and in the Outer Continental Shelf.

We are also hopeful that the newly created Investigation and Review Unit will provide an additional element of oversight to the

successor MMS agencies. The OIG is, to a significant degree, reactive in our investigative efforts. We hope that the IRU will provide

continuous compliance review of the program offices to identify potential weaknesses before they become serious problems. We also

rely on the bureaus to conduct internal investigations and reviews

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of allegations which simply do not rise to the level of OIG attention. The IRU will be a dedicated point of contact to which we can

refer such matters.

Presently, the Office of Inspector General is well into a multipronged effort to address multiple areas of concern relative to offshore drilling. We have dedicated most of our Central Region staff

to this undertaking. We are also participating in the investigations

being led by the Department of Justice into the events that led to

the disaster on the Deepwater Horizon and the catastrophic events

following. In addition to these efforts, we will continue building our

oversight capacity beyond royalties, into the areas of safety and

oversight of drilling operations both on- and offshore.

The ongoing OIG efforts regarding OCS safety and environmental concerns are also addressing a two-pronged request from

Secretary Salazar. First, to the Outer Continental Shelf Safety

Oversight Board, a body created by secretarial order on April 30th

of this year, the Secretary requested that the Board make recommendations to improve and strengthen the Department’s overall

management regulation and oversight of OCS operations.

Second, the Secretary asked the OIG to address specific deficiencies in MMS policies or practices that need to be addressed to

ensure that operations in the OCS are conducted safely, protective

of human life, health, and the environment. Since these two requests were so similar in scope, the OIG effort will respond twofold

to these requests by the Secretary. While we will provide the Safety Oversight Board our findings and recommendations by mid-August, we have already found several areas that call for further review and we will continue to pursue these to conclusion.

Mr. Chairman, that concludes my prepared testimony today and

I would be happy to answer any questions.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Kendall follows:]

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Chairman TOWNS. Thank you very much. Appreciate your testimony.

Ms. Brian.

STATEMENT OF DANIELLE BRIAN

Ms. BRIAN. Thank you, Chairman, for inviting me to testify. I

also want to thank Ranking Member Issa and Representative

Maloney for their unrelenting oversight of this troubled agency. We

have been working with Representative Maloney for about 15 years

on this issue.

MMS was created in 1982 because royalty collections had been

buried inside the USGS. Yet, the oversight functions again were

buried in MMS, beneath their other mission of promoting oil and

gas production. If there is any small silver lining to the Gulf disaster, it is that it has called attention to long-needed reforms. And

while the reorganization is a good step, we have real concerns

about its implementation and whether those who are planning it

are really consulting the appropriate stakeholders.

We also have to fix the frequency with which officials have gone

through the revolving doors, as has been discussed many times this

morning, but I really think the egregious example of the two recent

MMS directors going to become presidents of an offshore drillers

association needs a little bit further discussion, because the MMS

director was joining a trade association whose explicit mission was

to secure ‘‘a favorable regulatory environment’’ for offshore oil and

gas drillers; yet, they were the very regulators, when they had been

working in the public sector. So you have to ask whose interests

were they actually serving when they were the regulator.

There have been several major improvements to ethics at Interior, and further steps to slow the revolving door are in legislation

passed by both the Senate Energy and House Natural Resources

Committees. We do hope the House’s stronger provision is soon

passed into law.

The second problem is that MMS has always been dependent on

industry for technical knowledge and allowed industry to operate

largely on what the GAO described as an honor system. Representative Maloney’s legislation will significantly help MMS gain back

some of its upper hand.

When it comes to inspectors, it is hard for Interior to attract and

keep the talent it needs when inspectors are starting as a GS–7,

and this is a very important point. There is so much emphasis on

the revolving door, which is very important for us to be focusing

on, but if we only look at that and not on how we are compensating

those who are working as inspectors, I think it is a huge problem.

POGO has learned of one inspector, for example, who, after 3 years

on the job, has still had no training.

So we need to be investing in these inspectors. The last inspection conducted on the Deepwater Horizon was performed by an inspector who was still in training. The Government must establish

Federal training academies, like those for mine safety and the FBI,

to ensure that inspectors, both on- and offshore, are receiving regular training not paid for or run by industry.

So changing the culture requires more than reorganization and

it requires more than new leadership; they will need to dig deep

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into the management of the agency. And no matter what reforms

are put in place, they can only be effective with increased transparency about MMS’s operations. Despite the administration’s

Open Government Directive, which has focused on each agency providing new information to the public, Interior, for example, has

only focused on disclosures of things like the Nation’s national

treasures, which were already online anyway, rather than information about oil and gas leases.

The kind of information we all need to know coming from Interior are the kinds of things that policymakers would learn if we actually started investigating and talking to some of the people online. For example, even after the Deepwater Horizon explosion, inspector concerns are still being ignored. For example, an MMS inspector discovered that a deepwater production facility was operating days after he had issued a cease and desist order because he

believed it was in dangerous noncompliance. When he contacted his

supervisor for approval to issue another order, his supervisor overruled him. And this is in the wake of the Gulf crisis.

We have learned that this incident is not unique, but has become

a common practice where inspectors feel they need to ask permission from their supervisors because they are more likely to get in

trouble for issuing an incident of noncompliance than for not

issuing one. This is where the real work will have to happen,

changing that culture.

MMS inspectors are just beginning to speak out, despite the fact

that they have no real whistleblower protections. And I can tell you

with experience that MMS has been a hostile place for whistleblowers. If there is another takeaway from the disaster, it is that

whistleblower protections for Federal employees are urgently needed and would be offered through the legislation sponsored by Representative Van Hollen and Platts, the Whistleblower Protection

Enhancement Act.

Ultimately, MMS must reorganize its priorities to serve taxpayers and protect their resources, and not industry. As an important first step, Congress must enact H.R. 3534 and S. 3516.

Thank you again for your oversight of MMS, and I look forward

to answering your questions.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Brian follows:]

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Chairman TOWNS. Thank you very much for your testimony.

Ms. Randolph.

STATEMENT OF CHARLOTTE RANDOLPH

Ms. RANDOLPH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

On May 8th, oil first appeared on the shores of our parish from

the Deepwater Horizon blowout, an event caused by reckless, tragic, disastrous decisions made by BP personnel who obviously did

not follow established safety guidelines. We have now endured 74

days of relentless effort to protect our wetlands and our wildlife.

Birds don’t fly, fish don’t swim, and fishermen can’t make a living.

Then came the moratorium on deepwater drilling, literally adding insult to injury.

Research conducted by the LSU Center for Energy Studies has

revealed that this moratorium, suspension, pause, ban, whatever

the term du jour is, will not only impact a few parishes in Louisiana, 43 in Florida, 42 in Texas, Louisiana 32, and Mississippi 7.

In the Department of the Interior’s own report, DOI estimated

about 120,000 jobs would be lost.

Nine of the top 10 taxpayers in Lafourche Parish are located at

Port Fourchon, which services all 33 rigs singled out in the initial

moratorium. The spill has decimated the fishing industry. The moratorium will essentially end life as we know it in our parish. No

business can survive a 6-month pause and this much uncertainty.

Up to 40 percent of our property tax base could be lost by 2012

as a result of the drilling ban. Rig owners have stated in testimony

to the President’s Commission on the Oil Spill that they intend to

leave the Gulf for other opportunities elsewhere in the world. Some

service company employees have been offered transfers to locations

in other States. Families are now making decisions as to whether

the husband and father or the wife and mother will live elsewhere,

with the rest of the family staying behind to finish schooling. These

are the lucky ones; the rest will be terminated. In Lafourche, that

could be 10,000 people.

This ban is sending a mixed message. In April 2010, the unemployment rate in our parish was 4.4 percent, the lowest in the Nation. By November 30th, the stated end of the moratorium, the

number of unemployed will increase dramatically. In this country,

a whole lot of money has been borrowed to create jobs to stimulate

the economy. People in Lafourche Parish and those associated with

the oil and gas industry and its support services are not expendable Americans; we fuel this country.

On May 28th, I had the opportunity to personally ask President

Obama to reconsider his decision based on the devastating economic blow we would suffer. He declined, but he did offer to send

down an economic team to assess the moratorium’s impact on our

parish. Again, that was May 28th. The team will arrive July 26th.

President Obama, in early May, announced that no permits for

drilling new wells will go forward until the 30-day safety and environmental review I requested is complete. That was the first intense scrutiny of the industry. Some of these commissioners disagreed with the moratorium decision; yet it was established anyway. The President formed another commission, with its members

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asked to restudy this for at least 6 months. We will die a slow

death.

Statistics indicate that an oil tanker has a four times greater

chance of spilling its cargo than an oil well has of blowing out.

Tankers from around the world carrying up to 3 million barrels of

oil traverse the Gulf all the way to Port of Houston daily. Eleven

thousand tankers traversed the Gulf last year. The moratorium’s

own language emphasizes a shortage of resources available to respond to another spill in the Gulf as a reason for pause. In order

to resume activities, operators must submit evidence that they

have the ability to respond effectively to a potential spill.

There are those who call for an immediate halt to oil and gas.

What is being overlooked in the rationale behind the suspension is

that all of these tankers traverse the Gulf.

Based upon the rationale behind the new moratorium on deepwater drilling, issued July 13th by the Secretary of the Interior, I

am today challenging the President, Secretary Salazar, and the

Federal Government to protect all Gulf States from another spill as

completely as possible. Stop all oil tanker traffic in the Gulf of

Mexico.

Mr. Chairman, I await your questions.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Randolph follows:]

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Chairman TOWNS. Thank you very much. I really appreciate your

testimony.

Let me begin with you, Ms. Brian. You said something I want

to make certain I understand. You said ‘‘dig deep into the management.’’ What do you mean by that?

Ms. BRIAN. I am concerned that what we are dealing with right

now is really sort of the top layer, and what we have learned over

the many years of looking at MMS is that a bulk of the problem

is still there just because you change the people at the top. We

have known for years about the auditors who had been stifled by

their supervisors, and now we are learning about inspectors with

the same kinds of problems, where the mid-management is still in

line and nothing has really changed from that perspective.

Chairman TOWNS. So changing the name doesn’t get us there?

Ms. BRIAN. Breaking it apart and changing the name is just not

enough.

Chairman TOWNS. OK.

Ms. Randolph, before I move any further, I want to know in

terms of how big is a parish. How many people?

Ms. RANDOLPH. We have 95,000 people, sir.

Chairman TOWNS. How many?

Ms. RANDOLPH. We have 95,000 people, sir.

Chairman TOWNS. Is that an elected position?

Ms. RANDOLPH. Mine? Yes, sir.

Chairman TOWNS. OK. That sounds like mine. You have to run

for it.

Mr. Rusco and Ms. Brian, I want to ask, and you too, Ms. Kendall, do you think that the proposed reorganization plan can successfully reform MMS?

Mr. RUSCO. I am sorry, the current proposed plan?

Chairman TOWNS. Yes.

Mr. RUSCO. Well——

Chairman TOWNS. And get us where we need to go. I sort of

heard Ms. Brian on it, but——

Mr. RUSCO. Yes. Our position on that is that there have been, in

the last 5 years, dozens, over 100 recommendations to address specific deficiencies that have been identified, and we have looked

deeply at the process and found deficiencies everywhere we look. So

all of those must be addressed for Interior to effectively manage oil

and gas program. But that is true no matter what the organization

is. Changing the organization will not implement automatically

those needed reforms, so they are going to have to do both. If they

are going to reorganize, they are also going to have to implement

all of the reforms.

Chairman TOWNS. Ms. Kendall.

Ms. KENDALL. I share the sentiment of both Mr. Rusco and Ms.

Brian that reorganization, in and of itself, is not an answer to resolving profound management challenges. It will be in the implementation and the other reforms that the Department makes relative to the management of oil and gas, leasing, oversight, and royalty collection.

Ms. BRIAN. If I could add a little more meat to my overall comment on that. While we certainly agree that splitting up that conflict and mission is an essential change, it also could create more

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problems, because what we now have are three smaller agencies inside a bureaucracy and, as we know, we are all sort of students of

government, it is all about how big you are in the government and

how powerful you are. So now you have smaller entities.

And we are particularly worried from the audit perspective. We

have been thinking for some time that there may be some efficiencies created by looking at those small audit shops across the

Federal Government and thinking about housing them in one

place, where you would actually create an efficiency and have them

actually be an entity where there is more value placed on their role

as auditors, for example.

The other thing that worries us is that some of the people who

really need to be at the table as we are talking about this reorganization aren’t there. The States and tribes that MMS is responsible for collecting royalties from are not adequately being consulted and participating in the process, and that is of great concern

to us as well.

Chairman TOWNS. Does the Department of Interior have the expertise to be able to do the kind of monitoring and oversight that

we are really expecting? Because I am looking at a GS–7. That is,

what, $38,000 a year?

Ms. BRIAN. Isn’t that awful, yes, to think of the responsibility

that we are placing on them and we are so undervaluing them by

how much we are paying them.

The other part of what we think is important that hasn’t been

on the table at all yet is BLM at Interior also is conducting these

inspections, and we are not talking about them. So shouldn’t there

be some conversation about at least merging those missions in one

entity as well?

So I think there are a lot of important things that should be part

of the conversation that haven’t been yet.

Chairman TOWNS. Right.

Do you think they have the expertise?

Mr. RUSCO. No. We have found many cases in which the level of

expertise, the level of training, and just the sheer number of people

to do the job are inadequate, especially in the inspection area and

in the area of petroleum engineers to evaluate drilling plans and

to evaluate processes.

Chairman TOWNS. I guess my 5 minutes is up. I don’t think they

started the clock.

Mr. ISSA. Mr. Chairman, I would ask unanimous consent you

have all the time of the other Members here on your side.

Chairman TOWNS. I would be delighted to take it, but I will yield

5 minutes to you before we do that.

Mr. ISSA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Like the chairman, I think there is no limit to the amount of

questions we would like to ask each of you. I will start with Ms.

Randolph. I asked Secretary Salazar, a moment ago, an hour ago,

now, about why an arbitrary 6 months, rather than when the existing well, which is certainly a danger until it is killed, once it is

killed, why he couldn’t reconsider, at that moment, changing; and

he gave me an answer that, over the next 6 weeks, 8 weeks, he was

going to have all these studies come back.

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You have seen the President make a personal promise to you.

You have sat there watching people be laid off in an industry that

is not being compensated at all for being laid off; they are not like

the fishermen. The oilmen themselves are just on their own if they

get laid off; they cannot go to Mr. Feinberg to ask for any money

because they are not part of the ‘‘affected directly.’’

What do you need to see from this administration in order to

have the confidence that they care enough about Louisiana to actually put people back to work?

Ms. RANDOLPH. Well, the immediate response would be to lift the

moratorium and——

Mr. ISSA. But do you agree with the premise that if Secretary

Salazar were to reconsider a date shorter, that when the well is actually killed, which hopefully will be in a matter of weeks, that

might be the appropriate time to say, OK, it no longer is a danger;

therefore, resources could be available; therefore, we could lift the

ban? Would you be satisfied if he used that instead of 6 months

and then we will re-look at it with no expectation that would be

a hard reopening?

Ms. RANDOLPH. We would be very satisfied with that. There

would be a finite date. The industry itself could make decisions

based upon that date and, therefore, we would not lose all the service company jobs that are associated with it. Yes. But my concern

this morning is Mr. Bromwich talked about another study that begins or additional hearings that begin on August 4th and end on

September 15th, with a report due on October 31st. So it is another

study that doesn’t provide us any direction.

Mr. ISSA. Well, unfortunately, that will be 2 or 3 days before the

mid-term elections. I suspect no one is going to look at them until

after that date, too.

Ms. Brian, you and I have worked together on transparency, and

we will continue to. Ms. Randolph particularly has experience

about ghost assets, all the parishes do, where there are claims in

writing that X amount of skimmers, X amount of various assets are

brought to bear, and then we find out they actually weren’t there;

and we, to be honest, do not know if the total number of skimmers

that each were claimed is greater than the total number of skimmers ever contracted.

Do you have any better transparency at all? Have you been able

to get any better information on what the real assets that brought

to bear were? And if not, why do you think you are not seeing it?

Ms. BRIAN. We have not had any better access to information

and we do think that there is a tremendous problem with the lack

of transparency in this entire cleanup operation. I think part of the

problem is there has been an acceptance that BP was in charge for

a long time, and sort of leaving it to the private sector, which we

really believe this is something where the Government should be

in charge and making all information public to the general public,

and that just hasn’t been the case.

Mr. ISSA. Well, you know, one of the interesting things that I discovered with the chairman when we went down there is that they

run consensus management, which is a nice way of saying one

group is in charge except, really, they are not in charge; it takes

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able. Therefore, the decision to release is probably beyond the expertise of everybody. It is no way to run a railroad.

I guess I am going to sort of pose to both of you for a second,

and I think Mr. Rusco, because of your past studies I think you see

it, but you both have been asked. This reorganization, if you will,

moving the deck chairs on the Titanic, doesn’t it inherently delay

the ability of the organization, while they are busy reorganizing,

from getting to the various failures that both of you have seen in

past inspections and studies?

Mr. RUSCO. That is a concern that we have. We know that organizational change is very difficult; it is disruptive and it takes a lot

of agency resources. At the same time, they are dealing with this

catastrophic oil spill. They are also dealing with trying to do the

work that they feel they need to before they can lift the moratorium, and then they have this backlog of recommendations that

they are trying to address to improve their systems. It is a concern.

Mr. ISSA. Ms. Kendall, the same for you. I assume that it is very

hard for your various IGs and so on, the people that work for you,

to actually figure out who you are supposed to look at and what

you are supposed to oversee if the chairs are moving around. I am

assuming that one of the problems right now is you really don’t

know which one of these three entities to focus on. Is that correct?

Just during the reorganization.

Ms. KENDALL. During the reorganization?

Mr. ISSA. Yes, ma’am.

Ms. KENDALL. What we are really trying to do is focus on issue

areas. But following those issue areas as they are being moved

around has not yet become a challenge because the actual movement hasn’t taken place, but I imagine it would be in the future.

Mr. ISSA. One quick last question, if I could, Mr. Chairman.

The chairman and I enjoy the title of Oversight and Reform, and

the theory of that is that Congress has an absolute right to, if you

will, intervene in the organization of Government. Congress actually authorizes who gets to be a cabinet or not; we created the cabinet position for Homeland Security and so on. If the GAO were

tasked, in combination with this committee, to look at the various

revenue entities, not just in the Department of Interior, but primarily in the Department of Interior, well, maybe include the IRS,

they would clearly be outside, the various parts of inspection that

go on throughout the Government, but particularly Department of

Interior.

And, of course, contracting, and ask the bigger question of should

this entity really be truly consolidated with other areas of, if you

will, cultural excellence by comparison, do you believe that is something you could deliver at least a preliminary report back to us

during this Congress? In other words, are the basic facts of these

other entities, their existence for consideration by this committee,

something that we could begin working on before the lights go out

at the end of December?

Mr. RUSCO. I think it is something we would be willing to talk

to your staff about. I would hate to commit at this point to anything without further information.

Mr. ISSA. Well, Mr. Chairman, there is more than enough if there

is a second round, but that would be something that I would like

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to have our staffs explore, is whether we could take an active role

in looking at a much larger reorganization, particularly when it

comes to the following, which is I heard the GS–7, and I appreciate

that, but I happen to know that the inspectors go up to about

$100,000, GS–13s and 14s. So there are some that are paid relatively well and, in fact, paid better than their counterparts in the

Corps of Engineers who oversee public construction, including

NASA.

So, with that, I yield back, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman TOWNS. And I would also like to add maybe we need

to look in terms of stability, in terms of how long people actually

stay with the agency. I think that is another issue that we need

to consider as well.

Mr. ISSA. Absolutely.

Chairman TOWNS. At this time, I would like to recognize the gentleman from Ohio, Mr. Jordan.

Mr. JORDAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

All of you were here for the first panel; you listened in on the

questioning. I wanted to ask Secretary Salazar some questions, but

just because of votes was unable to get back in time before he was

dismissed. But I was intrigued by Congressman Turner’s time line

prior to the terrible accident in the Gulf with the Deepwater Horizon. So I want your thoughts.

Obviously, BP is at fault here, and we understand that, but do

you believe—well, let me go back to this. In Mr. Turner’s time line

he referenced four different occasions where standard inspections

were not performed. So I want your thoughts. Do you believe that

this accident could have been prevented if MMS would have done

those inspections? And we will just go down the line.

Mr. RUSCO. It is difficult to say, but I think that there is a bit

of a misconception about what these inspections are about. Most of

the inspections that take place on the rigs offshore are dealing with

safety of equipment, such as railings, stairways, slippery surfaces;

they are dealing with environmental issues, such as any noticeable

leaks of hydrocarbons; and they are dealing with production verification issues, looking to make sure that the metering is done correctly and that there are no bypasses of meters and that everything

is accounted for.

Mr. JORDAN. So you are saying, those inspections, people aren’t

actually out on the facility, in the equipment itself?

Mr. RUSCO. They are out there and they also do look at records;

they look at records to ensure that the approved plans are being

followed and they have——

Mr. JORDAN. Well, but certainly the fact that if those inspections

would have been done, there would have been a better chance to

detect those problems. Fair statement?

Mr. RUSCO. I can’t argue with that.

Mr. JORDAN. Ms. Kendall.

Ms. KENDALL. I would echo everything Mr. Rusco said, but I

would also add that, based on what I know, and I am far from a

petroleum engineer, but I believe that what is coming sort of to the

fore is that things like the well design and review and approval of

that, the actual practices of when to pull the mud and replace it

were the kinds of things that there are any number of sort of deciVerDate 11-MAY-2000 14:17 Mar 25, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00121 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\KATIES\DOCS\63146.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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sion points along the way that may have prevented what we are

dealing with now. But I don’t know that inspectors are the answer

to that sort of issue, that there has to be some much more careful

review of those kinds of issues.

Mr. JORDAN. Not disagreeing. We are talking about restructuring

and reorganization. That all is probably necessary, but the law said

do these inspections and they were not done, and a bad thing happened that could have been maybe prevented if in fact those inspections had been done. It seem pretty logical to conclude maybe

we would have caught something. They didn’t even do their job.

Ms. KENDALL. I think maybe is certainly reasonable.

Mr. JORDAN. And you can cut to the chase. They didn’t do their

job, and because now we have this terrible incident where lives

were lost, where economies are affected, Ms. Randolph knows that

firsthand, people’s lives, families’ lives, small business owners, and

now we have the President saying because our people screwed up

and didn’t do what they are supposed to do and now we have this

terrible accident, we are going to stop drilling everywhere, and

make a bad situation even worse. That is where we are at, and

maybe it could have been prevented if in fact they would have done

what they were supposed to do.

Ms. Brian.

Ms. BRIAN. I also don’t really know enough about those inspections. I think in general there is no question that MMS has been

not doing its job for many, many, many, many years. So I think

there is no doubt that if MMS was held accountable, these are

issues that have been raised by the Congress, by the GAO, by the

IG, by POGO for 15 years, so there is no question that if MMS had

reformed in the many times it was told it needed to, then we

wouldn’t have seen what we have in this accident.

Mr. JORDAN. Thank you.

Ms. Randolph.

Ms. RANDOLPH. I think it is a shared responsibility. Not only did

MMS not do its job; BP didn’t do its due diligence.

Mr. JORDAN. I yield back.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman TOWNS. I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I now yield to the gentleman from California, Congressman

Bilbray.

Mr. BILBRAY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman TOWNS. I am sorry. I am sorry. I yield to Congressman

Welch.

Mr. WELCH. [Remarks made off mic.]

Chairman TOWNS. I now yield to you.

Mr. BILBRAY. Thank you.

Mr. Rusco, I would like to talk about the response to the crisis.

Does anybody have any information at all, did the Army Corps use

the spillways upstream from New Orleans to divert water into the

Pontchartrain to try to get that flow to keep the oil out of the Pontchartrain and Lake Borgne?

Mr. RUSCO. I am sorry, that is something we have not studied.

Mr. BILBRAY. OK.

Madam President, I was a county chairman myself, so I kind of

relate to the frustration that when you want to do things, those

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who are always saying no continue to say no, even though things

need to be done.

Do you have a clip of what happened? Does staff have a clip of

that piece about the berm in Grand Isle? Can we play that?

[Video played.]

Mr. BILBRAY. Madam President, I married a girl from your part

of the world and the fact of the frustration of the people down there

when they want to do something, being told, no, no, we have to

study it. Grand Isle is over where Jean Lafitte used to hang out.

It is not your part of the world, but did you have any kind of situations like that where you basically ran into this issue where everybody said stop, we have to study something, don’t do things, and

basically we are always telling the locals no; or did we get a lot of

support saying, go ahead and we will work it out later?

Ms. RANDOLPH. It was very similar to what David was describing

in this video. They are our neighbor, so these berms are very important to us. And now I am watching a storm that may be coming

into the Gulf. Our response in those situations is from the bottom

up. We do what we know best. We respond naturally, instinctively,

as humans should, with plans in place. This has been a very

unique situation and a very frustrating one, yes.

Mr. BILBRAY. I mean, I really related to the fact that the Army

Corps always love to say we need to study the environmental impact of building a sand berm, and not realizing that there are times

that you have to call an audible. Leadership means dropping the

rule book and doing what you can, where you can, in the best common sense way, and this one was really kind of an interesting one

of, well, we have to make sure that a berm doesn’t hurt the environment while the oil is coming in over the top of it; and it is almost as if inaction is justifiable and less of a concern to bureaucracy than the possibility of possibly doing something wrong. And I

guess that is the part that I really think we have to talk about.

We have to not only empower people to make those calls.

I have spent a lot of quality time over in Coca Tree on Bayou

Terrebonne at the camp there, so the family loves that area. But

to sit there and have somebody that basically the system rewards

those for inaction, and it is safer for a bureaucrat to say no than

to say yes, we accept that most of the time, but during a crisis

there should be a way of burning a fire that says, look, if you don’t

call an audible, if you don’t do extraordinary things, if you don’t

throw the play book away and use innovation, you are going to get

in more trouble than if you do something wrong. I think we have

to figure out how do that.

Ms. Brian, do you have any comments or any concerns about

that? I have been waiting to call on you, anyway, just for your

name.

Ms. BRIAN. I know, you love my name.

Well, what you are describing is very similar to what we saw

happening with these inspectors, where their supervisors are making them scared to actually assess noncompliance orders, because

they are afraid if they do something they are more likely to get in

trouble than if they don’t do something, and that is even after this

incident. So it is really insight to me.

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Mr. BILBRAY. Mr. Chairman, I will just tell you I personally witnessed the results of Hurricane Katrina; I was in Louisiana and I

was in Mississippi, and I saw the difference between the mind-sets.

The feeling seemed to be in New Orleans of don’t do anything because you may do something or not have something done approved,

and when I went over to Picayune, just on the other side of the

Pearl River, it was, look, do what you can do, we will worry about

whose jurisdiction it is later, and I saw a real difference.

I just hope, somewhere down the line in our Federal responses,

we can sort of adopt that Mississippi mentality that I saw during

that disaster, rather than what I saw down south. And no offense,

Madam President, but there was a distinct difference; it was astonishing that two different political jurisdictions could respond so absolutely different to crisis, and I think there is a lot to learn there.

So thank you very much for your testimony.

Chairman TOWNS. I thank the gentleman from California for his

statement.

Just before I call on Congressman Welch, I would like to ask

unanimous consent that I include Mr. Luetkemeyer’s statement in

the record.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Blaine Luetkemeyer follows:]

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Chairman TOWNS. Now I yield to Mr. Welch.

Mr. WELCH. Mr. Chairman, thank you.

I am concerned about a lapse in the royalty collection for the period of leases between 1996 and 2000, and I just want to ask a few

questions about that.

Ms. Kendall, the Department of Interior, you probably have become aware of this, there was a set of leases that were issued between 1996 and 2000. They were under a law that was passed by

Congress that was intended to try to encourage domestic drilling,

but it was when oil was under $25 a barrel.

As I understand it, the law said there would be no royalties until a trigger price of, I think, $26 a barrel was hit. Oil now is, I don’t

know, $75 or $80 a barrel; at one point it was $140 a barrel. According to the report that I have seen from the GAO, unless we

change this so that we can collect the royalties on what would be

due on these leases for the oil that is above the trigger price, the

taxpayers could be out about $60 billion. Are you familiar with

that?

Ms. KENDALL. Yes, sir, I am.

Mr. WELCH. And are there any specific actions? The question of

the loophole was litigated by Anadarko Petroleum. They argued

that the way the law was written, there was not explicit authority

to charge the regular royalty rate above the trigger price. Many

Members of Congress who voted on that legislation had no idea

that there was going to be an exemption no matter how high the

price went. But the court decision was that the law has to be

changed in order for the taxpayers to collect the royalties that was

the intention of that act. Is that your understanding?

Ms. KENDALL. Yes, sir.

Mr. WELCH. So is it your understanding that in order for there

to be a collection on these royalties, we would have to pass a law

to make that permissible?

Ms. KENDALL. Congressman, I am familiar with the case that

you are talking about and I am familiar with the act generally. I

am not familiar specifically to any degree. I don’t know if—and this

is just my thinking off the top of my head—whether Congress could

successfully go back and pass a law that addressed those years specifically retrospectively. I would just guess that there would be a

challenge for that as well.

Mr. WELCH. Well, we would have to get our legal advice and do

it right, but I think all I am asking you to indicate is whether there

appears to be any administrative remedy to what appears to be essentially a loophole by which the companies that are drilling on

public lands are doing so without paying royalties to the public for

that profit-making privilege.

Ms. KENDALL. I am going to have to rely on fairly limited memory, but I don’t believe that there are administrative remedies

when there was a fundamental flaw in the law as found by the

court.

Mr. WELCH. All right, then I think, Mr. Chairman, Congressman

Markey and I will be introducing legislation that would be designed to remedy that loophole and provide to the public the royalties that they are due for drilling on the public lands.

Ms. Brian, are you aware of this?

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Ms. BRIAN. I am certainly aware of the problem, and I think it

would be terrific if legislation were passed to correct it.

Mr. WELCH. You do?

Ms. BRIAN. I do.

Mr. WELCH. All right.

Ms. Randolph, I just want to welcome you. I think all of us are

heartbroken. I went down to the Gulf, and as heartbreaking as it

was for me to fly out over that magnificent, beautiful marshland

at the Delta, what was the hardest was coming back and meeting

people who were fishermen in the oil industry and just seeing how

lives down there have been turned upside down. So I just want to

express to you my heartfelt sadness about what the people of the

Gulf Coast are enduring, and will long after Congress has moved

on to other things. So thank you for coming and all you do down

there.

Ms. RANDOLPH. Thank you, sir. And as a recipient parish of some

of those royalty revenues, I look forward to you increasing that.

Mr. WELCH. All right, thank you.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back. Thank you very much.

Chairman TOWNS. I thank the gentleman for yielding back.

Let me just sort of, I guess, again, Mr. Rusco and, of course, Ms.

Brian, and Ms. Kendall, how has this cozy relationship between the

industry and MMS impacted oversight and safety standards? Do

you think it has interfered with it?

Mr. RUSCO. I would like to just second what Ms. Brian said, that

there are sort of two problems. There is one that you could describe

as a revolving door issue. That may be a bigger problem at higher

levels of management than it is at the level of inspectors and engineers. But there is a second problem, and that is that they, by and

large, don’t pay a competitive wage with industry.

So when the industry is in good shape, they can pay a lot more

than what Interior is paying the people with comparable skills;

then, when times are bad, Interior can hire people. So there is sort

of a structural problem that could be dealt with by addressing the

amount that they can pay people; and there are other compensations as well. But I think that is part of the problem. It does,

though, the lack of the proper number and amount of expertise

that they can bring to bear does affect their ability to do their job.

Chairman TOWNS. Ms. Kendall.

Ms. KENDALL. I would also say that some of the exceptions in the

ethics regulations have allowed folks to kind of get away from the

intent of the regs, for instance, the acceptance of gifts because of

a personal friendship. These people are all friends. The folks in industry and in MMS that grew up together, they married each other’s sisters or cousins, they have been playing on the same teams

since they were in high school. So the exception to the gift rule,

which says if it is based on a personal friendship, could be exploited.

On the other hand, if someone were to say I am accepting this

on the basis of a friendship, they should also be prohibited or

recused from inspecting the rigs or the facilities of the people who

they have this friendship with.

I go back to the ethics regs. These are the floor, not the ceiling

of conduct, and I think MMS has an opportunity to make stricter

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rules apply to a very unique and a very specific problem that they

have.

Chairman TOWNS. They could do it administratively; they don’t

need us.

Ms. KENDALL. They could do it administratively.

Chairman TOWNS. Ms. Brian.

Ms. BRIAN. Mr. Chairman, I have the benefit of having looked

across the Federal Government for many years, and I continue to

think MMS is probably the worst in the Government when it comes

to its coziness between the regulator and the regulated. As I mentioned when the Congress people were voting, Mr. Issa certainly

has known that, he has been working on this for years, and Mrs.

Maloney, I have been working with her for 15 years on this issue.

I mean, I think that there is no question that the coziness in this

particular agency has been sort of extraordinary across the Federal

Government. There is no comparison, in our experience.

Chairman TOWNS. Right. Even in the Congress, when you leave,

you have to stay out a certain amount of time before you can come

back and lobby the Congress. That is the Congress. So I am wondering if maybe something along those lines shouldn’t be instituted

here.

Ms. BRIAN. Oh, there is absolutely no question we need to change

the rules when it comes to the revolving door, and there is strong

legislation that has been worked through the House Natural Resources Committee that would be addressing this particular issue,

and I certainly hope the committee members support that legislation.

Chairman TOWNS. I notice you didn’t start the clock, so that is

good.

I now yield to——

Mr. ISSA. Mr. Cao hasn’t gone.

Chairman TOWNS [continuing]. Mr. Cao, the gentleman from

Louisiana, who is really familiar with this subject.

Mr. CAO. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I want to focus on the issue of shallow water permitting. I was

reading one of the articles from Louisiana today, and they were

saying about the slow process of shallow water permitting, and this

is the question to President Randolph of Lafourche: How has this

permitting process affecting the shallow drilling industry in your

parish?

Ms. RANDOLPH. The Department of the Interior and MMS’s ability or charge to issue permits can create a defacto moratorium, and

MMS has done so because the response to the request for permits

has been very, very, very slow in the shallow waters. In the deep

waters what has been addressed in media, but shallow waters,

there is a defacto moratorium there as well.

Mr. CAO. And how has this defacto moratorium affected some of

the industry in your parish, how has it affected the people who are

being employed by this industry, some of the businesses that are

directly or indirectly related to this industry?

Ms. RANDOLPH. The shallow water defacto moratorium essentially has put independent contractors out of business. The fact

that they cannot get permitted or re-permitted under the new

guidelines affects a lot more the small business owners in the comVerDate 11-MAY-2000 14:17 Mar 25, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00129 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\KATIES\DOCS\63146.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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munity. We talk about the four or five major companies in this

country, the oil companies.

But when we talk about the shallow water, that is where the

independents are, and the majority of the exploring companies are

independents; they don’t have the resources or the resources to sustain any type of long-term moratorium. They cannot survive that

long and, therefore, they have begun to lay off people, yes.

Mr. CAO. Well, do you know of any rigs or any low drilling companies that either have moved rigs or have shut down because of

this slow permitting process?

Ms. RANDOLPH. In the shallow waters?

Mr. CAO. Yes.

Ms. RANDOLPH. Yes, sir.

Mr. CAO. Do you have the names of them?

Ms. RANDOLPH. No, I don’t have the names for you, but I can——

Mr. CAO. But based on your knowledge, there have been rigs that

have moved out of Louisiana or companies that have shut down because of this moratorium, or at least defacto moratorium?

Ms. RANDOLPH. Yes, sir.

Mr. CAO. Ms. Kendall, are there ways under the new rules and

regulations implemented by MMS that would allow greater speed

of permitting to some of the shallow water rigs?

Ms. KENDALL. I am sorry, I couldn’t hear much of your question.

Mr. CAO. Are there ways or procedures to expedite some of the

permitting process through the MMS within the new rules and regulations that were implemented after Deepwater Horizon?

Ms. KENDALL. I simply don’t know the answer to that question.

I am not familiar with the newly implemented regulations; I can

just speak to sort of in general terms. I know, in having discussions

with people, I think part of the contributing factors MMS has now

become a little gun-shy and is being extraordinarily cautious in

their review and their processing. Not that excuses them. And I

know that it puts a toll on the folks who are reliant on those permits, but I just don’t know if there is anything in the new regs that

would speed that up.

Mr. CAO. Thank you, and I yield back.

Chairman TOWNS. The gentleman’s time has expired.

I now yield to the gentlewoman from New York who has done a

lot of work in this area, Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney.

Mrs. MALONEY. I want to thank the chairman for focusing on this

important area of Government, an area that clearly needs reform

and I believe an area that would not have had this focus if we

hadn’t had the catastrophe in the Gulf with BP, and it is long overdue.

I wanted to mention that earlier today in our hearing with Commissioner Salazar we were talking about a recent GAO report that

was really developed for this committee on the revenue share the

Government collects from the oil and gas produced in the Gulf, and

this report ranked our country 93rd, one of the lowest of the 104

revenue collection regimes around the world. I find this absolutely

scandalous. He also testified that the revenue royalty collection

system had not been changed since 1920. I would like to ask Ms.

Brian to respond to this.

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I know that we worked together to end the Royalty-in-Kind program and have been trying to have one set of books, not two or

three, and to really get a fair deal for the taxpayer. Could you comment on this? With our technology, our expertise, why do we rank

93rd? We should be first. Ms. Brian.

Ms. BRIAN. I absolutely share your outrage, Mrs. Maloney. It is

ridiculous and there is certainly no excuse for it. I think this has,

for reasons I have never been able to understand, as we have said,

we have been working on this for so many years, this is not news

to us. This is an agency that has been sort of left to fester by itself,

without really breaking it open and fixing it, and I am hope that,

as I mentioned before, if there is a small silver lining in the catastrophe, it is that the long-needed reforms will finally happen.

Mrs. MALONEY. How will this change take place and how long

will it take before the royalties increase and we have more of an

accurate reflection of the value that is extracted from publicly

owned lands?

Ms. BRIAN. Well, at the moment there is nothing pending that

will actually change the collection of royalties at all. None of the

reforms that we are hearing about today will actually fix that; that

is something that is still up to the Congress to tackle.

Mrs. MALONEY. Well, also in the GAO report that we have had,

it found that the MMS area should do more to improve the accuracy of data used to collect and verify oil royalties, that it really

hasn’t been changed or updated. And I have put in a bill, H.R.

1462, and this bill would require a National Academy of Engineering study regarding improving the accuracy of collection of royalties

on production of oil.

Literally, the first panel testified that they need better indicators, and I feel personally that this would be an important step forward. I would like to make sure that all of the panelists have a

copy of the bill, and if you would get back in writing whether or

not you support it, it might be a way to move this legislation forward so that we actually can increase the royalties from these publicly owned lands.

Exactly what will the reorganization do to help improve the accuracy of this data? Is there anything that will improve the accuracy

of the data that is taking place now?

Mr. RUSCO. The reorganization itself says nothing about that.

There are many, many things that need to happen in order to improve the accuracy of the data, including rationalizing data bases

across the many units of the oil and gas management program so

that they are actually compatible; fixing the functionality of these

data bases so that they are collecting the data they need to do audits and oversight. And all of this needs to be done with some sort

of central vision of bringing the IT system up to date, because it

is horribly behind what the industry uses.

Mrs. MALONEY. Well, why in the world aren’t we updating it? I

would invite all panelists to submit in writing ways that we can

update it.

Another important GAO report said that there are no audits of

the oil and gas company royalty numbers, that the audits are done

by the companies themselves; and in so many cases MMS is probably under-collecting by hundreds of millions of dollars. Can you

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comment on the lack of audits of the oil and gas company royalty

program?

Mr. RUSCO. We found that there were problems with the self-reporting of data and the fact that there weren’t automatic and very

quick checks of that, or the use of third-party data as one would

expect in a system like this. For example, the IRS, you voluntarily

provide your tax return, but your employer sends in information

and your bank sends in information, and the IRS looks at that and

compares them. In the case of royalties, often there is an absence

of third-party verification.

Now, what the industry does is they use metering technology

that reports every 1 second on volumes and they look at each other’s data when there is a dispute between a pipeline company, say,

and an oil producer, they look at each other’s data and they resolve

it based on data. However, Interior has not adopted the kinds of

technology it would need to collect those sorts of data, and they

could; they could collect it directly from lessees.

Mrs. MALONEY. Mr. Chairman, we need to look at that, we need

to move into the 21st century, and we need to protect the taxpayers

in this area. I find it scandalous that we haven’t moved to modernize, to have audits, to have third-party verification, and that we

haven’t updated this law since 1920.

Chairman TOWNS. I agree with the gentlelady from New York,

and her time has expired.

I now yield 1 minute to the ranking member.

Mr. ISSA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Very quickly, in closing, for Mrs. Maloney, we did publish, last

October, something on this with the GAO’s help on this absence of

audit.

Ms. Kendall, you were mentioning the too cozy and the various

rules related to these friends, but in the case of Colorado, where,

you know, these people didn’t know each other before they got

there, but they got to know each other so well that one of the

women ended up pregnant. They very clearly exchanged gifts at a

very high level with people that were not their friends, completely

in violation, and then felt that they needed even more leniency. To

a great extent, isn’t this really simply an organization who justifies

that somehow, because they do the revolving door, they are all

friends and, therefore, they have a special relationship? Isn’t that

a culture that has to be changed, period?

Ms. KENDALL. Oh, absolutely.

Mr. ISSA. OK. I think we have made our point on that. I will

mention that Mr. Waxman, when he was chairman, held an interesting hearing, and that was the analysis of the difference between

fuel at temperature and wanting to hold our retailers accountable

for the differences in the temperature of the fuel being delivered

to the retail point, because on a 90 degree day versus a 60 degree

day, the amount of fuel you get, the BTUs available expand or contract. And the amazing thing was that the technology does exist to

do this sort of comparison to ensure that the density that you buy

equals the density that you agree to pay for BTUs.

So I would suggest strongly that if we get an organization that

cares about the American people getting the revenue they deserve,

getting the safety they deserve, we will get there.

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And I would like to close by, Ms. Brian, I appreciate your wanting to have the transparency, and Ms. Randolph, but for the GAO

and the IG, I want to personally thank you for time and time and

time again doing the studies, doing the reports, pointing out these

failures and staying with it even when administration after administration, at least three that I have been around for, failed to do

what you asked them to do, and I am glad to see that we are all

united getting it done today. But I want to thank you for sticking

with it. Probably, if there is anyone who has pay should be increased, perhaps it should be the people who did their job during

this period of time, rather than those who didn’t.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.

Chairman TOWNS. Thank you very much.

Let me thank all the witnesses for their time.

It is not every hearing where the witnesses and the Members on

both sides of the aisle agree on the issues, but I think this is one

of those rare days in the U.S. House of Representatives. Federal

oversight of offshore oil drilling has for decades been inadequate

and ineffective. The agency formerly known as MMS suffered from

an institutional conflict of interest, and repeated regulatory and

ethical failures, as my colleague from California just described

some of the things that went on.

All that has to change. The recipe for reform is not complicated

at all: Offshore oil drilling can no longer be regulated on the ‘‘honor

system.’’ That is No. 1. There must be rigorous Federal oversight

and effective enforcement.

Conflicts of interest must be eliminated. The royalty collections

must be separate from regulation and enforcement.

Sham environmental reviews cannot be tolerated any longer. I

don’t want to see environmental assessments that talk about protecting, but the point is we have to make certain that from this

point on that we do that.

Oil spill response plans must be realistic and we must understand that. The entire world now knows that we were not prepared

for the BP oil spill.

There must be an effective and proven technology available to

prevent blowouts in deepwater before we allow deepwater drilling

to resume.

I want to thank you again for your testimony. You have been extremely helpful.

And let me just say to the Department of Interior we want to

help them in terms of their reorganizing the Department, and I

think that sessions like this, where we can extract information

from people who have worked on these issues for so long, I think

would be very, very helpful to the Department.

So thanks again for your input.

I want to thank the Members who attended today and on that

note the hearing now adjourns.

[Whereupon, at 1:37 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]

[The prepared statement of Hon. Gerald E. Connolly follows:]

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