RosenbergBPDisasterResearchAnnotation4

Eilperin, Juliet. "U.S. Oil Drilling Regulator Ignored Experts' Red Flags on Environmental Risks."//Washington Post - Politics, National, World & D.C. Area News and Headlines - Washingtonpost.com//. The Washington Post, 25 May 2010. Web. 12 Feb. 2011. .  2. Where does the author work, what else has s/he written about, and what are her/his credentials? ** Juliet Eilperin, the author of the piece, is employed as a national writer at the Washington Post. In the recent past, she has written the majority of her articles about topics related to the environment, including such areas as Climate Change, emissions, and the BP Oil Spill. According to a Huffington Post biography ( []) , she received her Bachelor’s in Politics from Princeton University in 1992, and has covered politics and economics for organizations in South Korea, Louisiana, Florida, and ultimately The Washington Post since 1998. While initially a House of Representatives reporter, her work has shifted to covering the environment since 2004. Beginning in 2005, she has served as the McGraw Professor of Journalism at Princeton University, during which she published a book, entitled // Fight Club Priorities: How Partisanship is Poisoning the House of Representatives //. 3. What is the main topic or argument of the text? ** Through its arguments, the article suggests that the Mineral Management Service, as a result of an organizational culture favoring oil and natural gas development in the face of financial incentives, has neglected to properly pursue environmental and other related assessments as would be typically required in the face of expansions of activities. 4. Describe at least three ways that the main topic or argument is fleshed out. ** The argument presented above is mainly fleshed out through selective quoting of documentation pertinent to the offshore drilling activities with which the MMS was involved in recent years. In particular, such correspondences detail the struggles between analysts and managers within the agency with regards to the evaluation of a lease in the Beaufort Sea. While the former cite evidence from the Exxon Valdez spill to justify environmental impact statements, the actions of the latter are influenced by bonuses for expediting leasing processes which lead them to exclude such concerns from final submissions. Furthermore, documents released within the agency are cited, among them a 2000 draft environmental analysis referencing the lack of experience of the oil industry with deep water activities, as well as a 2005 policy which adopts the practice of assuming that industry experts are more able to assess the impacts of their activities. Last, the author draws upon interviews with the numerous stakeholders in the process, including a Department of the Interior spokesperson and former MMS employees, to paint a picture of how warped the regulatory regime had become in recent years. 5. What three quotes capture the critical import of the text? ** ** 1)  **  “Minerals Management Service officials, who can receive cash bonuses in the thousands of dollars based in large part on meeting federal deadlines for leasing offshore oil and gas exploration, frequently changed documents and bypassed legal requirements aimed at protecting the marine environment, the documents show.”
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** 2) **  "Both in the case of MMS and NOAA, there's this agency culture that their job is to protect oil and gas activity," said Layla Hughes, senior program officer for the World Wildlife Fund's Arctic policy."

** 3) **  “The rule governing which information the MMS should receive and review before signing off on drilling plans states: "The lessee or operator is in the best position to determine the environmental effects of its proposed activity based on whether the operation is routine or non-routine."     6. Explain how the argument and evidence in the text supports your research focus.   **  In the failures of the regulatory regime attributed to the BP Oil Spill, those of the Mineral Management Service have been drawn to the forefront by stories of drug abuse and other inappropriate workplace activities (  []). However, from this article it is clear that the organizational failures within the agency go beyond such instances, into the realm of cultural devaluations of scientific research. By witnessing the cases in which conclusions suggesting potential environmental harm and risk were simply cast aside in the name of financial reward, one has to wonder whether the role of regulator was being properly fulfilled in the years leading up to the disaster. Such outcomes tie in strongly with the issues of lobbying mentioned in previous annotations, and paint a bleak picture of the objectivity of the United States legislature in evaluating such policy areas.
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 *  7. List at least two details or references from the text that will be useful to other members of your research group  **

1) In leasing portions of the Beaufort Sea in Alaska in April 2007, the MMS received $42 million in bids from corporations such as Shell, Conoco, BP, ENI Petroleum U.S., and Total E&P USA. Since the receipt of such a large amount of royalties is likely to raise the prestige of the organization and perpetuate its existence, it makes one wonder whether the discarding of the report of biologist Jeff Childs was done with this incentive in mind.

2) The 2005 changes to the rules and regulations of the MMS with regards to offshore drilling are provided at the following link: []  Interesting to note is the fact that comments on regulations proposed in the document were provided by stakeholders with potential ties to the oil industry, such as the State of Florida, Shell Exploration and Production Company, and the American Petroleum Institute.