With all the important things going on …
What with Obama paying off World Cup bets with beer; and,
What with Joe Biden calling the manager of a frozen custard shop a "smartass" for suggesting the administration lower taxes; and,
What with Obama having fired one General and demoted another to replace him in Afghanistan; and,
What with the BP oil spill producing more oil than anyone believed there was left in the Earth; and,
What with Obama having exactly zero influence on the G-8/G-20 conference in Canada; and,
What with his official job approval now down to 45 percent according to the latest Gallup, Rasmussen, and Wall Street Journal/NBC polls …
You would think there would be SOME good news SOMEwhere in the Administration. Perhaps in one of the many agencies which are under the total and complete control of the White House … like the agency formerly known as the Minerals Management Service.
Alas, you would be wrong.
As you remember, MMS according to its soon-to-be shut-down website: "is the federal agency that manages the nation's natural gas, oil and other mineral resources on the outer continental shelf (OCS). The agency also collects, accounts for and disburses more than $5 billion per year in revenues from federal offshore mineral leases and from onshore mineral leases on federal and Indian lands."
These are the geniuses who approved the emergency plans submitted by the oil companies in case of a spill which included protecting the many walruses which inhabit the Gulf of Mexico and depended upon the on-site advice they would receive from a guy who has been dead for about two years.
That MMS.
While the oil is moving ever closer to the beaches and wetlands, the Obama Administration has decided to fix MMS by renaming it. Not once, but twice. Within a week.
The new name of the Agency is - or was: the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement (BOE).
This, from an official Department of the Interior press release: A Secretarial Order that [Ken] Salazar has signed renames the Minerals Management Service the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement ("Bureau of Ocean Energy" or "BOE")
Note the "BOE" business. It seems that the old MMS would be the new BOE, a couple of million of our tax dollars in letterhead, and signage and all would be well.
Except all was not well. At about the same time a robotic submarine was knocking the collection cap off the top of the well, someone at "BOE" got the word that MMS would NOT be known as "BOE" but would, instead be known by the full acronym for its new name the "Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement" or BOEMRE.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, these are the people whom Barack Obama has chosen to replace the first group of morons he had appointed to run the off-shore drilling program.
I am told that there are BOEMRE employees who have done nothing since the change from "BOE" but try and figure out how to pronounce it.
BOOM-ray has gathered some fans, if only because it has something of a creole flair. Others have cut to the chase and begun referring to the organization they work for as "Bummer."
So, all of that snazzy "BOE" letterhead and all those design solutions were tossed into the - we hope - the recycle and new letterhead is now in process.
Why the screeching halt to "BOE?" Maybe the folks at the Department of Energy (DOE) were afraid there would be confusion amongst the multitudes as to who to blame for the lack of any leadership in the Gulf of Mexico.
Maybe it's because people like me would suggest it stands for "Barack Obama's Error."
I took this much of your time to help you understand why local business leaders and politicians - Republicans and Democrats - are pounding their fists on the table complaining about the lack of cooperation they are getting from the Obama Administration, it is - at least in part - because the Interior Department was so busy trying to figure out the new name of MMS.
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