A top Interior Department official today called for the establishment of a new ocean energy safety institute to enhance collaboration among government, industry, academia and the environmental community on how to keep pace with the rapid evolution of offshore drilling technologies.

Deputy Secretary David Hayes suggested the institute may be established by secretarial order if Congress fails to act.

A nearly year-old agreement to allow the joint development of oil reservoirs straddling the U.S.-Mexico maritime border in the Gulf of Mexico stalled last month in the Senate, stranding a widely supported measure many argue would increase domestic energy security and improve the safety of offshore drilling. The agreement announced by government officials last February in Los Cabos, Mexico, creates a framework for U.S. offshore drilling companies and Mexico's Petróleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, to jointly develop oil production in an area nearly the size of New Jersey that is outside both countries' economic waters.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration won't investigate allegations that a scientist falsified numbers about the amount of oil spilled during the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster, according to internal documents released yesterday by a watchdog group. In January 2012, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility filed a scientific integrity complaint against the federal agency. In the complaint, the group alleged that NOAA senior scientist William Lehr intentionally misrepresented the reports of the team he headed during the agency's response to the Gulf of Mexico oil rig explosion and spill.