And then there’s the matter of the Minerals Management Service, the federal agency that Salazar is drastically reorganizing because of its too-cozy relationship with the oil industry. The New Yorker skewers the administration on two critical points:

Obama inherited an Interior Department that he knew to be plagued by corruption, but he allowed the department’s particularly disreputable Minerals Management Service to party on. Last spring, in keeping with its usual custom, the M.M.S. granted BP all sorts of exemptions from environmental regulations. Ironically, one of these exemptions allowed the company to drill the Deepwater Horizon well without adhering to the standards set by NEPA. For reasons that are hard to explain, the Administration still can’t, or won’t, say exactly how much oil is leaking.

And, the New York Times reveals that, despite a moratorium on new drilling permits, "since the April 20 explosion on the rig, federal regulators have granted at least 19 environmental waivers for gulf drilling projects and at least 17 drilling permits, most of which were for types of work like that on the Deepwater Horizon shortly before it exploded, pouring a ceaseless current of oil into the Gulf of Mexico."

Meanwhile, Shell Oil continues to ready its oil exploration fleet for a go at offshore drilling in America’s Arctic Ocean this summer. Armed with a permit from the same MMS that let BP drill in extreme conditions in the Gulf without adequate planning, Shell is likewise heading into a risky situation with little assurance that it can handle a blowout scenario. As the latest congressional hearings into the Gulf spill started, a congressman from New York demanded that Shell postpone its Arctic venture.