Watchdog, Not Partner

President Obama's announcement yesterday that he had picked former Justice Department inspector general Michael Bromwich to head the Minerals Management Service is shaping up as a watershed moment. It marks the first time that an IG has gone on to head an entire agency, doesn't it? That in itself is a landmark development.

In his address to the nation on the oil spill last night, Obama described MMS this way:

One place we've already begun to take action is at the agency in charge of regulating drilling and issuing permits, known as the Minerals Management Service. Over the last decade, this agency has become emblematic of a failed philosophy that views all regulation with hostility -- a philosophy that says corporations should be allowed to play by their own rules and police themselves. At this agency, industry insiders were put in charge of industry oversight. Oil companies showered regulators with gifts and favors, and were essentially allowed to conduct their own safety inspections and write their own regulations.

When Ken Salazar became my Secretary of the Interior, one of his very first acts was to clean up the worst of the corruption at this agency. But it's now clear that the problem there ran much deeper, and the pace of reform was just too slow. And so Secretary Salazar and I are bringing in new leadership at the agency -- Michael Bromwich, who was a tough federal prosecutor and inspector general. And his charge over the next few months is to build an organization that acts as the oil industry's watchdog -- not its partner.

This might require a change in the MMS mission statement, which reads as follows:

The MMS's mission is to manage the ocean energy and mineral resources on the Outer Continental Shelf and Federal and American Indian mineral revenues to enhance public and trust benefits, promote responsible use, and realize fair value.

There's a bit of "watchdog" in there, but a lot of "partner," too. So you can't overstate the task Bromwich has in front of him. Reorganizing an agency is one thing; completely transforming its culture is a far more daunting task.