Obama administration focused on wind energy, not MMS

News is emerging that the Obama administration, particularly Elizabeth Birnbaum, was too focused on developing green energy rather than reining in the MMS which had a history of problems of all kinds. Byron York:

Birnbaum, who is so far the only Obama administration official to lose a job over the Gulf oil spill, spent an enormous amount of time working on the controversial Cape Wind project off the coast of Massachusetts. After years of regulatory wrangling, it was approved April 29 -- nine days after the oil-rig explosion that set off the Gulf spill.

Birnbaum came in for heavy criticism of MMS' handling of the Deepwater Horizon/BP Gulf oil project. The general tone of the critique was that MMS had not paid enough attention to regulating such environmentally sensitive undertakings. What received less attention was why that attention wasn't paid, and that was because Interior and MMS were busy pushing offshore renewable energy projects.