Paint Mms News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Words of its critics, rubber stamps the oil industry's action and unable to enforce safety regulation. in 2000, they issued a safety alert calling for offshore drillers in the u.s. to have an additional backup system called and acoustic switch that could prevent oil blowouts like the one in the gulf. they went so far to call it a quote essential component. just three years later after complaints from the oil industry, mms determined it wasn't so essential after all, saying it was too costly and effective, never mind bp is required to use it on rigs in two other countries. stuart smith is an en...

Imagine how things could be worse for the mns. its 1700 employees are supposed to regulate the oil industry but a growing chorus says it's nothing short of a disaster. >> it's very clear you have a dysfunctional agency. you can't trust them. they showed they're too cozy with industry. >> reporter: too cozy indeed. a year ago, an agency found more than a dozen ethical failure, some having sex and drug use with employees. >> they thought partying and expensive tickets to hotel rooms somehow made it's easier for them to understand the business of how much oil and natural gas was being taken out. ...

They've shown that they're too cozy with industry. >> reporter: too cozy indeed. two years ago internal government investigation discovered ethical failures by a dozen mms employees. some were even having sex and using marijuana and cocaine with oil company employees. >> it was very clear, they thought that partying, drinking, accepting expensive tickets and hotel rooms, somehow made it easier for them to understand the business of how much ore and oil and natural gas was being taken out. >> reporter: cnn has reviewed hundreds of pages of documents and government reports dating back almost ten...

It really happened during the bush years of late, mms really started working way too close with big oil. in fact, as the "washington post" is reporting, as you have seen, they gave categorical exclusion, meaning they weren't even checking for some of the environmental measures, mms, on this very rig, the deepwater horizon rig they were supposed to. >> why be so cozy with this industry you're supposed to be regulating? >> because i think we were in a recession, starting with the beginning of the obama administration, april 2009. for a minute, people thought the obama administration might be a l...

Harm and writes about the crusade. forget about the drug use and drinking they report, and the report last month, makes it sounds like mms, these watchdogs designed to regulate the industry basically is more concerned with the health of energy companies than the environment? >> no question about it. mms is part of the interior department. we think of interior, national park services or yellow stone and yosemite or u.s. fish and wildlife trying to manage birds and game in this country. mms has to work closely with implementing the national environmental policy act of 1969. that happened after t...