Anchorage Daily News:

WASHINGTON — Responding to criticism that the troubled federal agency that regulates offshore drilling is too cozy with the industry it oversees, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced Wednesday that he’ll split the Minerals Management Service into three branches.
The reorganization, which has a 30-day timetable, will create the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management to develop energy resources, including offshore renewable resources.
The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement will police offshore operations and protect the environment.
Most important, Salazar said, the existing division that oversees $13 billion in annual revenue collection will evolve into the Office of Natural Resources Revenue, move to the Interior Department’s budget and management division, and be entirely separate from Interior’s land and minerals division.
About 700 of the agency’s 1,700 employees will work on offshore energy leasing plans. Another 300 will be devoted to environmental safety and enforcement, and the remaining 700 will move to the revenue collection division.
“The employees of the MMS deserve an organizational structure that fits the missions they are asked to carry out,” Salazar said. “With this restructuring, we will bring greater clarity to the roles and responsibilities of the department while strengthening oversight of the companies that develop energy in our nation’s waters.”

The rest here.

Yesterday I posted an item from Forbes’s “Corporate Social Responsibility” blog suggesting that better leadership from companies like BP, Haliburton, and Transocean was needed. That same principle of leadership applies even more so to the Interior Department and MMS. We need better regulators, not better regulations.