On June 17, 2010, the Department of Interior Inspector General Mary Kendall testified before the House Committee on Natural Resource’s Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources regarding the proposed reorganization of the Minerals Management Service (MMS) following the BP oil spill this summer. Her testimony highlighted a number of regulatory and enforcement deficiencies that her office found within MMS. She noted, rather ominously for the industry, that “…the greatest challenge in reorganizing and reforming MMS lies with the culture – both within MMS and within industry.”
Inspector General Kendall testified that her office had found “troubling accounts of inappropriate behavior on the part of certain MMS employees” and that this behavior was, for the most part, enabled by industry. She concluded her testimony by asking how the government could address the conduct of industry representatives. She suggested that perhaps it was time to impose ethics requirements on oil and gas companies doing business with the government.
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