Interior official who oversees offshore drilling for MMS resigns

[Casino67]

Washington Post:

By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, May 17, 2010; 2:18 PM

The top Interior Department official who oversees offshore oil and gas drilling for the Minerals Management Service will retire on May 31, The Washington Post has learned.

Chris Oynes, who oversaw oil and gas leasing in the Gulf of Mexico for 12 years before being promoted in 2007 to associate director for offshore energy and minerals management, informed colleagues in an e-mail that he will step down. He has come under fire from former MMS officials for being too close to the industry he regulated.

The news came as Interior Secretary Ken Salazar unveiled a series of reforms to change the way the department conducts onshore oil and gas drilling.

He said in they would "establish a more orderly, open, and environmentally sound process for developing oil and gas resources on public lands. The BP oil spill is a stark reminder of how we must continue to push ahead with the reforms we have been working on and which we know are needed."

Salazar announced in January he was examining the procedures for how the department oversees oil and gas drilling on land. In the wake of the April 20 offshore drilling disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, he has accelerated the timetable for the overhaul.

The new policy will rein in the use of categorical "exclusions" -- the waivers that Bureau of Land Management officials gave to energy companies so they did not have to conduct a detailed environmental analysis of their drilling projects. These analyses are required under the National Environmental Policy Act.

[Pepper]

Chris Oynes: another one under the bus. More to come.