Obama MMS director steps down

[30ashopper]

The head of the Minerals and Management Services (MMS) has resigned.
MMS, which is charged with monitoring and regulating offshore drilling, has come under intense criticism since the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico.


Interior Secretary Ken Salazar told a House panel this morning that Director Elizabeth Birnbaum had stepped down.

?She did it on her own terms and her own volition,? he said at a House Appropriations Committee hearing.

Salazar called Birnbaum ?very strong and very effective? and said she had helped to implement reforms at the long-troubled agency. Birnbaum has helped to address a ?culture of corruption,? Salazar said.

?Liz Birnbaum has been a strong leader, and we have done tremendous work,? he said.

Birnbaum has held the post since July of 2009.

MMS director resigns amid criticism - The Hill's Blog Briefing Room

The heads are starting to roll! Birnbaum was responsible for approving the TransOcean drilling permit for the Macondo well.

 

[BeachSiO2]

MMS director resigns amid criticism - The Hill's Blog Briefing Room

The heads are starting to roll! Birnbaum was responsible for approving the TransOcean drilling permit for the Macondo well.

Are you sure? It was approved by MMS in March 2009 and the article says she didn't head MMS until July 2009. Was she the staff reviewer?

[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macondo_Prospect"]Macondo Prospect - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]

 

[sunspotbaby]

Fox news said she was fired. ;-)

 

[scooterbug44]

Fox news said she was fired. ;-)

Officially she resigned.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar told a House panel this morning that Director Elizabeth Birnbaum had stepped down.

?She did it on her own terms and her own volition,? he said at a House Appropriations Committee hearing.

 

[30ashopper]

Are you sure? It was approved by MMS in March 2009 and the article says she didn't head MMS until July 2009. Was she the staff reviewer?

Macondo Prospect - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ah, you are right, the article was misleading, looks like they have revised it -

MMS has also come under fire for allegedly lax environmental oversight under both the Bush administration and President Barack Obama -- including its approval last year of the BP drilling project that went catastrophically awry in the Gulf of Mexico.

I wonder why she stepped down then?

 

[Em]

Sounds like there was a heaping mess of trouble in that MMS office.

 

[GoodWitch58]

Ah, you are right, the article was misleading, looks like they have revised it -



I wonder why she stepped down then?

Maybe she didn't want to get blamed for something that happened before she got there?

 

[Em]

Interestingly, Pres Obama was bragging last year that this well rig which exploded was the safest made to date. No news people seem to be highlighting that.

 

[GoodWitch58]

yes, as were all the elected officials in Florida. I think the real question we need to be asking is this: why were our elected officials, including the president, so willing to believe whatever the oil companies said?

It's time we took the country back from the corporations IMO.

 

[Em]

Don't you mean take this country back from the Gov't? The gov't created the regulations, which were not enforced by ... our gov't. More regulation doesn't solve that problem of crooked gov't. Corporations aren't bad. People are to blame.