I know that I will probably be flamed for daring to say that lawyers are not suitable for managing technical and engineering based agencies. They cannot understand the nuance, and technicalities of many of the procedures used when mining and and drilling are concerned.
Yes I know some lawyers are highly intelligent, but they have no, and yes I repeat no fundamental training in either engineering or science. I'm afraid management experience, and the understanding the intricacies of the law are not enough.
This is why you get this type of behavior:
[over the hop]
The head of the Minerals management service
Liz Birnbaum: MMS Director
"As a former Associate Solicitor here at Interior with extensive experience as counsel and staff director for congressional committees, Liz brings a number of strengths to this key position at Interior," Secretary Salazar said. "Her in-depth knowledge of energy issues, natural resource policy and environmental law as well as her managerial expertise and work in coalition building will be especially important as we advance President Obama's new energy frontier and lay the foundation for a clean energy economy."
http://www.marinelog.com/...
The Minerals Management Service, or M.M.S., also routinely overruled its staff biologists and engineers who raised concerns about the safety and the environmental impact of certain drilling proposals in the gulf and in Alaska, according to a half-dozen current and former agency scientists.
http://www.nytimes.com/...
Which then allows this type of comment
"M.M.S. has given up any pretense of regulating the offshore oil industry," said Kierán Suckling, director of the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental advocacy group in Tucson, which filed notice of intent to sue the agency over its noncompliance with federal law concerning endangered species. "The agency seems to think its mission is to help the oil industry evade environmental laws."
I'm afraid replying but but, the previous administration:
Responding to the accusations that agency scientists were being silenced, Ms. Barkoff added, "Under the previous administration, there was a pattern of suppressing science in decisions, and we are working very hard to change the culture and empower scientists in the Department of the Interior."
It would have been easier to do so by putting a scientist in charge in the first place. Perhaps?
When you are continuing the pattern.
In a letter from September 2009, obtained by The New York Times, NOAA accused the minerals agency of a pattern of understating the likelihood and potential consequences of a major spill in the gulf and understating the frequency of spills that have already occurred there.
Look, I know most engineers, myself included, are not capable of coherent speech nor presenting a nuanced case before the politicians. You know, being nice and not calling them "fucking morons", and such. However, sometimes we happen to know what we are talking about, and can even phrase it in quasi intelligible language.
It would be nice to see a scientist or an engineer promoted to oversee this type of department, it might even make sense.
I know science doesn't have legal standing, nor can it even be accepted by some as reasoned argument by many, but when risk analysis is done by bureaucrats then shit hits the fan.
I wouldn't ask an engineer to defend me in court, and I won't ask a lawyer to define boundary layer conditions.
OK, so it's merely a management position, well if you don't listen to your internal experts, then its not even effective management.
Sometimes technocrats are required, as has been amply shown, and no, I don't want the job, it's not my field of expertise.