Minerals Management Service

Shell settles one royalty dispute with feds for $25 million

This week's cover story, "Drilled, Baby, Drilled," reports on the efforts of a group of federal auditors to hold energy companies accountable for underpaid royalties on oil and gas leases. On the eve of its publication, the U.S. Office of Natural Resources Revenue (ONRR) announced a $25 million sett ... More >>

Drilled, Baby, Drilled: The strange battle to keep Big Oil from cheating

Bobby Maxwell, fed whistleblower, earns $7.5 million in oil company battle

It took nine years of fighting for money the government insisted it wasn't owed. It probably cost him his job, too. But last week, former federal auditor Bobby Maxwell and the Justice Department finally reached a $26 million settlement with Anadarko Petroleum over underpaid royalties on oil leases ... More >>

Ken Salazar to drill-baby-drill crowd: Stop whining and get cracking

Ken Salazar.​A year after being chastised for being too hasty in opening up offshore oil leases for exploration, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar was fielding questions from former colleagues in the Senate about why the administration isn't issuing more drilling permits to boost domestic ... More >>

Harrold Wright: The unsung whistleblower behind a big settlement with Big Oil

John JohnstonBobby Maxwell​The Department of the Interior's Office of Natural Resources Revenue recently announced that Shell Oil and related companies have agreed to pay the goverment $2.2 million to resolve claims that the companies underpaid royalties from natural gas wells on federal and I ... More >>

Five great Colorado whistleblowers

Philip Van Cise​This week's cover story, "A Dam Shame," looks into the controversy generated by a state dam inspector named John Redding, who raised concerns about ethical violations inside the Colorado Department of Natural Resources--and ended up paying a high price for his concern. People w ... More >>

BP oil-spill report identifies a failure of management -- and regulators

​A chronic whine from oil and gas interests has to do with the glacial, foot-dragging pace of government. But a presidential commission report on the British Petroleum offshore well explosion that killed eleven people blasts the now-extinct Minerals Management Service for moving too quickly to ... More >>

For a good time, call 1-800-Minerals Management Service -- Our shmuck of the week

​The Lakewood-based federal agency that forever altered our assumptions about what government bureaucrats do when no one is looking will change its name today from the Minerals Management Service to the Office of Natural Resources Revenue. And good riddance to the scandal-plagued MMS, which wa ... More >>

British Petroleum fined by feds in Colorado case -- three years later

Tony Hayward.​Under fire for its lax supervision of British Petroleum and other offshore drillers, the embattled federal agency formerly known as the Minerals Management Service has fined BP $5.2 million for filing "false, inaccurate, or misleading" reports about its energy production in Color ... More >>

Ken Salazar getting tough with BP: Too little too late?

New MMS head Michael Bromwich.​The naming of a former prosecutor to head the scandal-plagued Minerals Management Service, coupled with President Barack Obama's lackluster but occasionally pugnacious speech about making British Petroleum "pay" for the oil-slick disaster in the Gulf, suggests th ... More >>

Ken Salazar gets boiled in oil by Rolling Stone over BP disaster

"You're canceling my subscription?!"​The Obama administration's ever-shifting damage figures and containment strategies for the mess in the Gulf -- not to mention the ever-spewing oil -- have disenchanted many former admirers of the President. Now a scathing dive into the disaster in the lates ... More >>

Ken Salazar still in hot seat -- but with lots of company

"Bring me the head of Tony Heyward." ​Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar is still getting roundly pummeled in the press over the Obama administration's response to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster. But there's increasing evidence that the administration is trying to shift the falte ... More >>

Ken Salazar under fire: Can he survive the spill?

All systems go, but which way? Out the door?​It was fairly predictable that Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar would emerge as the whipping-boy of conservative pundits over the Deepwater Horizon spill. What better symbol of the alleged impotence of the Obama administration than a cowboy-ha ... More >>

BP spill flow much worse than we estimated, says United States Geological Survey director

Marcia McNutt calls the spill a "significant environmental disaster." ​It's official: Even with the corrective measures British Petroleum is undertaking to try to contain the oil leak flowing into the Gulf of Mexico, the massive spill has been flowing at a rate two to four times greater than o ... More >>

Ken Salazar fumes, hair booms nixed: Gulf spill update

Department of the InteriorSituation hairy: The Deepwater Horizon rig, before it sank. ​As oil from the Deepwater Horizon disaster begins to stain shorelines along the Gulf Coast, beauticians across the nation are learning that one of the more feel-good (and dubious) solutions proposed in recen ... More >>

Letters: Racists should make a run for the border

Ken Salazar's shakeup at Interior: Where will it all end?

There's a new sheriff -- and a lot of new acronyms -- in town.​In the wake of the Deepwater Horizon oil slick disaster, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar is barreling ahead in his efforts to reform the embattled Minerals Management Service, the once-obscure agency responsible for overseein ... More >>

Ken Salazar taps "recovery czar" Chris Henderson to fix MMS

The New RepublicDrill, baby, drill: Just what does additional offshore drilling add to the mix?​In the wake of the worst American offshore oil disaster in decades, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar is scrambling on several fronts to address the perception that his administration has been m ... More >>

Ken Salazar is spinning the Deepwater Horizon debacle

Ken Salazar: Oil spill debacle sparks creation of Yet Another Government Agency

"All together now: BLM, FWS, MMS... and now YAGA!"​In the wake of the offshore rig explosion and massive oil spill threatening the Gulf Coast, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar has announced a major shakeup of the Minerals Management Service, the agency responsible for overseeing drilling ... More >>

Ken Salazar's role in BP disaster: More spin than reform?

Department of the InteriorThe explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon rig still hasn't been explained.​The finger-pointing over the massive oil slick threatening the Gulf Coast is spreading almost as fast as the spill itself. While critics on the right chortle over Department of the Interior c ... More >>

Ken Salazar takes a step forward by booting Interior's royalties program

Ken Salazar names new chief for scandal-plagued MMS

As we reported several moons ago in a Westword feature entitled "The Zen of Ken," one of Ken Salazar's first official acts as Secretary of the Interior was to visit the Lakewood office of the Minerals Management Service and vow to clean up the place. The obscure but vital agency, which collects bi ... More >>

Ken Salazar wants windmills in the ocean, but first he'll have to save the Interior Department

Ken Salazar extinguishes a Bush fire sale

Ken Salazar, the new Secretary of the Interior, who spent much of last week traipsing around the Denver area declaring that there's a new sheriff in town, has taken what he calls "an important first step" in restoring balance to federal public lands policy -- pulling the plug on a controversial sa ... More >>

From Obamanation to Abomination, these characters were the worst of the worst

Sex, blow and government secrecy

Shortly before Thanksgiving, the U.S. Department of Interior announced it was carving up several turkeys caught in the sex, drugs and graft scandal at the Minerals Management Service office in Lakewood. After months of costly investigation and blistering official reports on brazen conflicts of int ... More >>

Crossing Over

How government watchdogs became the energy industry's party animals

Sleaze, sex, cocaine -- and oh yeah, billions in lost revenues -- at Bush's Interior

The Verdict's In

Underdog Has His Day

Fighting Mad

Tycoon Jack Grynberg says the energy industry has stolen millions from him -- and billions from the government. What if he's right?

Duke of Oil

He took on big energy companies and won. So why did the feds fire him?