a ranking member i might remind everybody that although we produce scathing reports on mineral management service and tried to get the then bush administration to make changes and the then obama administration make changes we failed to do so and the gulf of mexico was filled of oil because of that agency's ongoing failures. with that i recognize the gentleman from maryland and would ask he have an additional one minute. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. mr. miller, as i walked around my district this weekend, a lot of people were complaining about having to write collects to the irs. and in that light and based on your report, there were thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars in improper expenditures in 2010 with regard to this 2010 conference. gsa employees stayed in luxury resort suites, charged expenses for after hour parties, purchased food for non-gsa employees, just to name a few of the examples. one of the recommendations you made in your vort that, and tangherlini became acting administrator one of our first conversations was about sending a bill to the regional commissioner,

is another good example i mean what was going on with the minerals management service that b.p. was allowed to have the shoddy equipment i mean if you were going to go after the has a so you're in favor of stronger government regulation oh i do think that if you're going to have the minerals management service saying that it's going to do something and it doesn't do something or in some circumstances maybe aiding and abetting sort of our land reckless one of your problems was the bush administration to cut their funding to the point where they had like one inspector for every hundred wells and wasn't that inspector also like sort of oil execs as well and you know actually the boss was so so so you are not only more regulations but you also i want to you know i don't i don't know that it's and i don't i don't think it's that i think that what we have is like regulatory capture i don't know that the best answer to regulatory capture is provide businesses with more people to sway. you know if we're going to gauge wrongdoing by the damage that's been done you know i think you need t

when we were in the majority of 2005 and 2006, as sub committee chairman i worked on the mineral management servicehe parties they were having paid for by the oil companies that did business with the government in violation of all the laws. they in fact told us they thought it was necessary, they needed to have a close working relationship with those they oversaw. fast forward and the gulf is filled with oil and too close relationship between regulators and regulated. it's not the only part there are lavish parties and only timeta government thought it was their right and entitlement. but when will congress start putting its assets in to making sure that we have transparency? that is a signature of my chairmanship, can i get this and the next administration to change their ways and become transparent? not just give it lip service. but provide the real online capability, not just for my committee but for crew. groups on the left and right who want to know about the waste in government. only way they will get that access is if we change how you access government records like this spending. >> greta:

deep water drilling, i mean, hay had the joke agency called the minerals management service. hich did not survive more than a few weeks after the deep water horizon disaster. they ab bollished it and they replace it with the ocean management regulation and enforcement. it sounded much more impressive. they're going to manage it and regular trait. enforce it. the same problem, would you rather work for the federal court for $50,000 a year or would you work for the oil company for $200 ,000 a year? the best talent was working for the companies. and the agencies, they had scandal, you know, it was they had all kinds of corruption and, you know, drugs and parties. it was like the secret service. [laughter] but i'll assert that if you had bob's you top yan society which you were to extract the corruption, the bias, the interest, the conflict of interest, the money, the media, you still people -- presumably -- might have blown out. it is impossible to say one way or the other. these thicks fail in complicated ways. the question i guess with the financial crisis is you know what poin

ago, when i was in the minority -- we investigated and organization formerly called the mineral management services. we found that in fact they were partying with the people they're supposed to oversee, there were taking gifts and favors, and they thought they needed to have a close relationships with the people there were interfacing with and justify ignoring federal rules as to gifts based on that. is that similar to what you are seeing at gsa? >> yes. very similar. we are investigating this sort of things. >> as the ranking member, i might remind everybody that even though we produced scathing reports on the mineral management service and tried to get people should ministration and obama administration to make changes, we failed to do so and the gulf of mexico was filled with oil because of that agency's ongoing failures. i would now recognize the gentleman from maryland and granted an additional one minute. >> as i walk from my district is weakened, a lot of people were complaining about having to write checks to the irs. based on your report, there were tens of thousands of dollars in improper

before there was deep water production and deconflict the three missions that existed in the minerals management service. we had to deconflict those missions into strong and separate agencies which have become world class agencies in the work that they do. industry for its part also had to answer our call to raise the bar. today drilling act -- activities in the gulf are now back to pre-spill levels, and the u.s. is now positioned as a global leader in offshore oil and gas safety. that's true whether i visit petro brass and the energy leaders in brazil as we host, co-host another international forum on offshore safety in norway this june. so it's been good, but the bar has been raised. that's good for domestic production in america's oceans, and it's also good for industry as a whole. and at the end of the day, it's good for american energy security. now, our results-oriented approach doesn't just stop in the oceans of america where we see, oversee hundreds of millions upon hundreds of millions of acres. it also goes to the onshore areas where we have oversight of some 700 million acres of the lands tha