Pelosi’s lame blame game: No ‘burrowed-in’ Bush appointees oversaw Deepwater Horizon

Pelosi’s lame blame game: No ‘burrowed-in’ Bush appointees oversaw Deepwater Horizon Washington Examiner By: Joel S. Gehrke Jr.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., recently blamed Bush appointees who “burrowed in” at the Minerals Management Service for the regulatory failures that led to the Deepwater Horizon disaster. But as it turns out, not one of the officials responsible for overseeing the exploded rig was a Bush political appointee.

The Washington Examiner has obtained biographic information on the MMS officials responsible for overseeing BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig at the time it exploded, from the Gulf Region Director to the last inspector to set foot on the rig. Most of these federal employees started with the agency decades ago. Not one was a presidential appointment of George W. Bush, although one longtime MMS employee in question was promoted to his current position during the Bush Administration.

Drew Hammill, Speaker Pelosi’s press secretary, told the Examiner that Pelosi had been referring more generally to a “whole culture” at MMS of lax oversight.”The Speaker had in mind that there was a culture at the Bush Administration of regulators having a cozy relationship with the Big Oil they were regulating,” said Hammill.

On May 27, Pelosi was asked by a reporter whether congressional Democrats had failed in overseeing MMS. She replied by blaming “burrowed-in” Bush appointees for the breakdown in oversight that resulted in the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

“Many of the people appointed in the Bush administration are still burrowed in the agencies that are supposed to oversee the [oil] industry,” Pelosi said.

The Examiner subsequently left repeated messages with the Speaker Pelosi’s office seeking the names of Bush appointees to whom the Speaker was referring. When contacted Friday, Hammill confessed: “I do not know.” He added: “She wasn’t making specific – she didn’t mention any names in the press conference, but there are people who have moved from administration to administration…” He also said, ”We aren’t going to give out names of government employees.”

Neither the officials at the Minerals Management Service who work in New Orleans District — which has immediate jurisdiction over Deepwater Horizon rig — nor their superiors in the Gulf Region owe their career to the Bush Administration. They got their jobs applying for a civil service position through the normal federal hiring process. With two exceptions, these officials have worked at MMS since at least the 1980s. The two most recent members of the Gulf Region MMS are not connected to the Bush Administration, either.

Hammill pointed to a report recently published by the Office of the Inspector General. “I think the people she had in mind were discussed in the IG reports, and you’d have to get their names from the Inspector General,” he said. The two most recent IG reports detail investigations of the nearby Lake Charles District, which did not have oversight of the ruptured well, and another MMS district in Colorado. The former report does allude to a scandal involving Don Howard, the regional supervisor for MMS stationed in the New Orleans office, but Mr Howard was fired in January, 2007, two years before BP bought the rights to drill in the area where the spill is located and three years before the spill began.

The MMS Public Affairs office provided The Examiner with background information on the MMS staffers with direct roles in overseeing Deepwater Horizon. Here’s the rundown:

Eric Neal was the “novice” drill inspector that the MMS sent out for what would be the last Deepwater Horizon inspection before this disaster started. Eric Neal started as a career employee of MMS in 2003, following in the footsteps of his father, Robert Neal. The elder Neal started with the agency in 1984 and was promoted to his current position there in 1993.

The Neals both report to their Unit Supervisor, Phil McLean, who joined MMS in 1999.

Frank Patton, the New Orleans district drilling engineer, joined the United States Geological Service in 1976, and then joined MMS in 1988. Patton was responsible for approving three BP Deepwater Horizon permits in 24 hours, including two within ten minutes of their receipt, one week before the rig blew. Patton later admitted approving the defective blowout preventer on the BP rig without verifying that the “last-ditch mechanism” on the blowout preventer would work.

Patton and McLean both report to David Trocquet, the New Orleans District Director who joined MMS in 1988.

Trocquet’s superior is Michael Saucier, the Regional Supervisor of Field Operations. Saucier started with MMS in 1984.

Lars Herbst and John Rodi are the Director and Deputy Director of the Gulf Region, and Michael Saucier’s immediate superiors. Herbst started with MMS in 1983, and Rodi started in 1981. Herbst was promoted to his current position by Randall Luthi, the MMS Director under Bush’s Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, but he kept his position after President Obama appointed a new Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar, and after Salazar named Elizabeth Birnbaum his MMS director.

In addition to her charges about “burrowed in” Bush appointees, Pelosi has told reporters that she will continue to blame Bush for the nation’s current ills until “the problems go away.”

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/pelosis-lame-blame-game-no-burrowed-in-bush-appointees-oversaw-deepwater-horizon-96833674.html#ixzz0rcjm5M8w

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/pelosis-lame-blame-game-no-burrowed-in-bush-appointees-oversaw-deepwater-horizon-96833674.html