In her first public appearance since a forced resignation shortly after the Gulf of Mexico oil spill began, the former director of the disbanded Minerals Management Service today stood behind the Obama administration, declining to challenge its offshore drilling policies.

Liz Birnbaum, the former MMS director who resigned in May in the midst of the initial response to the BP PLC oil spill, said she provided Interior Secretary Ken Salazar "with every piece of information I could" before the administration in March announced a plan to expand offshore drilling in the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico and off the coast of Alaska in its five-year plan.

"I cannot tell you the number of meetings we had," she told the presidential commission investigating the BP spill. "In the end, I supported the administration's decision."

In response to a question about where the idea for the expansion originated, Birnbaum said it was originally proposed by former MMS Director Randall Luthi under President George W. Bush.

"The proposal was put on the table by Luthi before he left office. The proposal was much vaster and was introduced on the last day of the last administration," she said, adding that President Obama cut the Bush proposal back substantially.

The comments are a sea change from the administration's original touting of the plan as an "expansion" of drilling. Administration officials quickly quieted down about the plan after the April 20 explosion, and Obama reversed some of the policies in his Oval Office address to the nation in June.

Still, Birnbaum said she supported the Obama administration's decision in March.

But Birnbaum stayed mum on the administration's decision to temporarily ban deepwater offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. Birnbaum resigned on the same day that the administration officially imposed the first six-month moratorium that was later overturned in federal court.

There was "substantial discussion back and forth between the White House and the Interior Department," she said. But when asked specifically whether MMS had any role in deciding to implement the moratorium, she replied, "That's above my pay grade."

Obama admin urges judge to preserve moratorium

The Obama administration yesterday asked a federal judge to preserve its most recent ban on deepwater drilling. That ban was imposed in early July after a federal judge overturned the original moratorium.

In a legal filing to federal Judge Martin Feldman, who overturned the original moratorium in June, the administration says Interior was justified in "exercising its statutory authority to adopt an interim solution while addressing a procedural error" with the original ban.

"The conclusion that deepwater drilling poses a threat to life, property or the environment sufficient to warrant a suspension of lease activities ... is entirely within Interior's exclusive province," the filing says.

Feldman heard oral arguments in the case earlier this month, but he asked the administration and the companies challenging the ban to offer the additional arguments in writing.

The filing from the companies says Interior overstepped its authority in issuing the second moratorium.

Hydrates delay well-plugging efforts

Methane hydrates are once again causing problems for BP engineers attempting to plug the Macondo well permanently.

Retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen today told reporters that after spending the last two days flushing the ice-like crystals out of the capping stack on the seafloor, crews have resumed their attempt to fish three pieces of pipe out of the damaged well before lifting the blowout preventer to the surface, where it will play a key role in the myriad investigations into the disaster.

The hydrates have set back those operations by at least 24 to 36 hours, Allen said.

The hydrates originally caused headaches for responders when BP first attempted to cap the gusher with a containment dome earlier this summer. This time, the hydrates kept crews from opening the shear rams on the blowout preventer and made it difficult to insert cameras and equipment into the stack, Allen said.

BP is preparing to lift the blowout preventer ahead of plans to complete a "bottom kill" procedure, which involves pumping mud and cement into the well miles below the seafloor to plug it for good.

Blowout preventer wasn't recertified -- Transocean

The blowout preventer was never recertified despite regulations to do so every three to five years, a Transocean engineer told federal investigators today.

Mark Hay, a Transocean senior subsea engineer, told the joint Coast Guard-Interior panel investigating the spill that the 40-foot set of valves had been on the Deepwater Horizon rig since 2000 and had never been recertified.

He said the drilling contractor did regular maintenance and tests on the valve stack, including replacement of a number of gaskets and parts just months before the April 20 explosion.

And he said a number of changes were made to the blowout preventer in 2004 and 2005 -- some with the involvement of the manufacturer and some without. But he said BP officials did not oversee the modifications, despite having requested some of the changes.