Fed Oversight Failed in Gulf Oil Catastrophe: Salazar

Ken Salazar admitted today that the government should have had better standards in place on the devices built to prevent disasters on offshore oil wells. The interior secretary said he believed "additional work should have been done on blowout preventers," reports USA Today. "There will be tremendous lessons to be learned here."

Salazar appeared before two Senate panels today, notes AP. When Senator Ron Wyden and others asserted that the government had little oversight over the oil industry ("It is long past time to drain the safety and environmental swamp that is MMS," said Wyden), Salazar disputed the sentiment. "The conclusion that this is an unregulated industry is not correct," he said. "This is a highly regulated industry."
(More Ken Salazar stories.)