Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement is an agency of the U.S. Department of the Interior, which manages the national mineral resources (gas, oil and other commodities ) on the continental shelf of the United States. It also settles the royalties for the extraction of mineral resources on land for areas that are either federally-owned or located in Indian reservations. The Authority shall at its own budget of $ 163 million claims to 13.7 billion U.S. dollars a year for the rights to use of Federal Bathroom Private land ( offshore and onshore ) and property of Native -Americans a. Seat of the Authority 's Washington, D.C. Until the 18th of June 2010 it was called Minerals Management Service ( MMS for short ) and was renamed by Ken Salazar, the Interior Minister of the United States.
The Authority is also responsible for the granting of licenses for the exploitation of offshore oil and gas fields. It prescribes the conditions of exploitation and monitors compliance with environmental regulations. For land in federal ownership licenses are issued by the Bureau of Land Management, the Indian reservations of the Indian peoples in the context of self-government. Itself under the legal supervision of the Bureau of Indian Affairs There, the MMS is responsible only for billing.
Criticism
Critics accuse the authority to work closely with the energy industry, especially with the oil industry to work together. In recent years there have been repeated cases of corruption in which MMS employees had personal relationships with employees of the oil industry, monetary and in-kind accepted. In the context of the Deepwater Horizon disaster was announced that the MMS gave up a previously prescribed emergency plan for this platform.
In the wake of the Deepwater studies it was also found that the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement has not fulfilled its oversight responsibilities for decades. In addition to the approximately 10,500 active oil wells, approximately 27,000 abandoned oil wells are alone in U.S. waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Among them are registered as 3500 temporarily abandoned ( temporarily abandoned ). A status which is only permitted for a maximum of one year, according to law. Since the BOEMRE undertakes no on-site inspections, it checks only written documents, but has no method to check the final decision on a well as part of a resubmission. Therefore, there are temporarily abandoned wells that reach back to the 1940s. The temporary closures are not designed for these periods, their tightness is verified by anyone.