Michael Bromwich Tapped to Reform Troubled Minerals Management Service

Michael Bromwich, the veteran prosecutor and government fixer picked to overhaul the troubled Minerals Management Service, has a long history of cleaning up government messes.

And the bureaucratic muddle revealed at the MMS this year by the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico certainly is that -- including allegations of sex, drugs, and luxury bribes from oil industry representatives for employees and even its former director.

President Barack Obama today named Bromwich to overee a reorganization of the agency slammed in Congress and the media for being far too close to the oil companies whose drilling permits and drilling operations it is supposed to police.

"For a decade or more, the cozy relationship between the oil companies and the federal agency was allowed to go unchecked," Obama said in announcing the appointment, just hours before he was to make a national address on the subject from the Oval Office. "That allowed drilling permits to be issued in exchange not for safety plans, but assurances of safety from oil companies. That cannot and will not happen anymore."

The Mission

Bromwich's mission, the White House said, will be to "oversee the reorganization of the MMS to eliminate conflicts among the different missions of the agency which include establishing safety standards, regulating industry compliance, and collecting royalties. These actions will ensure that there is no conflict of interest, real or perceived, in oil industry oversight."

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has already announced plans to split the agency into three units, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, and the Office of Natural Resources Revenue.

The details will now be left to Bromwich, whose plans will be based at least in part on on the Interior Department's 30-day report on safety and environmental precautions for offshore drilling rigs and recommendations from the new National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling, which has yet to begin work.

Bromwich himself has a history of drilling down into sclerotic government organizations.

A former assistant U.S. Attorney and inspector general at the Justice Department, he has also served as the independent monitor of the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Police Department, dealing with use-of-force, civil rights and internal misconduct issues; investigated problems at the Houston Police Department Crime Lab for that city; and conducted a special DOJ investigation of misconduct at the national FBI Laboratory.

Spies, Bribes and Oliver North

Bromwich is also used to dealing with politically hot topics.

He conducted the inquiry into the FBI's handling of the Aldrich Ames espionage case; the way the bureau and DOJ handled classified information while probing campaign finance; an alleged deception of a Congressional delegation by high-ranking officials of the Immigration and Naturalization Service; and the DOJ's role in the CIA crack cocaine controversy.

And as a federal prosecutor, Bromwich also served as associate counsel in the Office of Independent Counsel for Iran-Contra, acting as one of three courtroom lawyers for the government in the case of United States v. Oliver L. North.

Currently, Bromwich is a partner at Washington law firm Fried Frank, where he lead's the firms internal investigations practice, providing such services for public and private clients.