Salazar sees shakeup for MMS

WASHINGTON, May 18 (UPI) -- U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said Tuesday the department's Minerals Management Service may have played a role in the gulf oil spill disaster.

Salazar told the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee that while most of the agency's staff do their job well there are "a few bad apples" and indicated the tree will be shaken.

"We need to clean up that house," The New York Times quoted the Obama Cabinet member as telling the committee.

Any MMS employee guilty of negligence or corruption would be turfed, he said.

Since the April 20 Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico that killed 11 workers and started a massive, ongoing leak of crude oil from the ocean floor, the Obama administration has said it will separate the minerals service's conflicting functions of promoting offshore oil operations and enforcing safety and environmental rules. More will need to be done to give federal regulators the resources, authority and independence to monitor drilling operations, Salazar said.

Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico said he sought to learn how the federal oversight of the drilling operations broke down.

"Along with the failure of technological systems, and failure by people who were responsible for those systems, regulatory failure is one of the three key interlocking breakdowns that I believe are at the heart of the problem," Bingaman said.

The New Mexico Democrat said there were several changes in BP's drilling plan.

"These decisions can be driven by cost and the desire to make up lost time on a drilling project," he said. "This raises the important question of where the MMS was in this process -- was it consulted, does it have an established role that assures it will scrutinize major changes to established plans."

Two other Senate hearings on the oil spill were planned for Tuesday.