WASHINGTON, DC - House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Ranking Member Darrell Issa (R-CA) today issued a web video on the distressing history of the U.S. Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service (MMS). The dysfunctional oil industry regulator’s decades of mismanagement were documented in an October 2009 minority report. Last year, Issa introduced H.R. 3736, the Minerals Management Reform Act, to increase MMS’ transparency, accountability and oversight by making it an independent agency.
“The massive environmental and human tragedy unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico is only the latest evidence that MMS is a renegade regulator, requiring rigorous reform that both Democratic and Republican Administrations have failed to deliver," Issa said. “While we don’t yet know the long-term impact of the Deepwater Horizon spill on industry and the Gulf coast ecosystem, MMS and the Department of the Interior should no longer be able to evade accountability."
