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The Marshall Islands, not the U.S., had the main responsibility for safety inspections on the Deepwater Horizon. The Deepwater Horizon oil rig that exploded in the Gulf of Mexico was built in South Korea. It was operated by a Swiss company under contract to a British oil firm. Primary responsibility for safety and other inspections rested not with the U.S. government but with the Republic of the Marshall Islands — a tiny, impoverished nation in the Pacific Ocean.

The Minerals Management Service (MMS) has accepted high bids valued at $483,959,404 and awarded 313 leases to the successful high bidders who participated in Western Gulf of Mexico Oil and Gas Lease Sale 207. Funds from the total high bids will be distributed to the general fund of the U. S. Treasury, shared with the affected States, and set aside for special uses that benefit all fifty states. The leases were awarded following the completion of an extensive, two-phase bid evaluation process to ensure that the Federal government receives a fair monetary return for the public mineral resources it makes...

I’m sitting here watching and listening to my taping of Obama’s “press conference.” He speaks about the corruption in the Minerals & Management Service, discovered by Secretary Salazar and he commissioned a report and a report has been provided by the Inspector General showing corruption in the Minerals and Management Service. Once the report was available, apparently Secretary Salazar immediately took steps to clean up that corruption. I did a (Proquest) search on Minerals and Management Services and find no news articles to speak of about it, in the last year, before May 2010. I wonder when the report was...

...Most of the focus in Katrina's wake has been on oil prices, one reason the Bush administration has waived some fuel emission standards and released oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. But just as worrisome to America's economic health are rising natural gas prices. Even before Katrina, the Energy Information Administration was projecting natural gas prices of $10.50 per MMBtu. As recently as 1992, prices were about $3.50. Fortunately, America has extraordinary reserves of natural gas located right off its coasts. Unfortunately, the environmental lobby has helped maintain a federal moratorium that puts 85% of what is known as the...

Standing 60 feet above sea level on this oil platform 130 miles southeast of New Orleans, Rab Bruce pointed to where the huge wave slammed into a tangle of grated steel and multicolor pipes. The Petronius deep-water platform, which was hit by a 90-foot wave during Hurricane Ivan last September, is now back on line. "I was just in shock at the damage," said Mr. Bruce, a longtime field coordinator on Chevron's Petronius deepwater platform, which was hit by a 90-foot wave during Hurricane Ivan last September. "I had never seen anything like this. Everything was busted, dangling and messed...