Gulf Coast Oil Spill

Administration Lifts Drilling Moratorium; Landrieu Won't Lift Hold

Rachel Slajda | October 12, 2010, 2:26PM

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar

The Obama administration announced today that it is lifting the moratorium on deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.

But Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA), who has been holding the nomination of a new director for the Office of Management and Budget in protest of the moratorium, said she will not release her hold.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, who announced the early end to the moratorium today, said that oil companies who comply with new, stricter safety rules will be able to apply for permits.

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Gulf Coast Oil Spill

BP's Relief Wells Had Blowout Preventer Problems Just Like Deepwater Horizon

Rachel Slajda | July 15, 2010, 5:45PM

The Deepwater Horizon blowout preventer.

Oil has been gushing into the Gulf of Mexico for almost 90 days because, in part, the well's blowout preventer didn't work. And as it turns out, the blowout preventers on the relief wells -- the relief wells that are the only way to permanently stop the oil from leaking -- were also found to have "performance problems."

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar noted this week that the relief wells' blowout preventers, or BOPs, had been recently checked out under new testing requirements and found to have problems themselves, which have since been repaired.

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Obama Administration

Salazar Didn't Focus On Reforming Minerals Management Agency Before Spill

Justin Elliott | May 31, 2010, 2:24PM

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar

The Interior Department's Minerals Management Service has long been known to have an intensely intimate relationship with the extractive industries it regulates. But when President Obama, and his Interior Secretary, Ken Salazar, took office in 2009, they proceeded to make some changes to ethics rules in the wake of a sex and drugs scandal in MMS' Denver office -- and that's about it.

The Times has a look at why the administration failed to order a full overhaul at MMS:

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