A failure in the Gulf

Sunday, May 9, 2010 | 2:06 a.m.

The ecological disaster unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico due to the sinking of the oil rig Deepwater Horizon last month has revealed the lapses by federal regulators. The Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service, which oversees offshore oil wells, has largely let the industry police itself.

The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that the MMS doesn’t write or implement most of the safety regulations. The agency writes broad goals and lets oil and drilling companies figure out how to meet them.

The Journal also found several instances in which the MMS identified potential safety problems and either didn’t follow up or allowed industry to handle the issue which, in some cases, it didn’t.

The newspaper also found that the U.S. safety record for offshore oil drilling doesn’t compare well with other oil-producing countries. Offshore oil wells in U.S. waters were also more likely to go out of control, as the one in the Gulf of Mexico did.

MMS officials say the agency has a healthy inspection program, and inspectors often visit some of the 3,600 oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico unannounced. But the number of inspections has fallen over the past several years. In 2005, the MMS visited 1,292 rigs. Last year it saw 760.

The agency has also failed to follow up on some of its own recommendations and concerns. In 1998, it sought ways to improve blowout preventers, the devices designed to shut down out-of-control wells, but it failed to take the recommendations of a researcher it hired to advise it, likely because of the cost. The industry has rebuffed proposals that add costs.

In 2000, the MMS told oil and drilling companies it expected them to have backup systems on their blowout preventers and repeated the warning last year — but it never checked to see that they did. The Journal reported that there are rigs in the Gulf of Mexico that don’t have backup systems because the MMS hasn’t required them.

In the current disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, it is notable that the blowout preventer failed.

The MMS was rocked over the past several years by charges of unethical conduct by its employees, including allegations that some workers took gifts from — and even had sex with — people they were supposed to be regulating.

Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., an opponent of offshore drilling, told the Journal, “If MMS wasn’t asleep at the wheel, it sure was letting Big Oil do most of the driving.”

Although investigators are still trying to determine the cause of the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon, it is clear that MMS has failed in its duties to protect the public and the environment. That must end. The White House and Congress should work together to overhaul the agency so it protects the public’s interest, not the oil industry’s.