Top Democrats on Wednesday called on Congress’ watchdog to investigate the Trump administration’s decision to merge two existing bureaus within the Interior Department to oversee offshore oil and gas, wind and mining.
Senate Energy and Natural Resources ranking member Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) and House Natural Resources ranking member Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) asked the Government Accountability Office to investigate whether a consolidation could undermine beefed up oversight created after the Deepwater Horizon offshore oil disaster in 2010.
The letter — also signed by California Democrats Sen. Alex Padilla and Rep. Luz Rivas — zeroes in on the administration’s decision in April to consolidate the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement to create a new Marine Minerals Administration.
The lawmakers told acting Comptroller General Orice Williams Brown, who heads GAO, that merging the agencies “raises serious concerns about whether Interior is collapsing the firewall between resource development and independent safety oversight that was established after Deepwater Horizon.”
