The federal employees responsible for conducting inspections on offshore rigs, platforms and other facilities associated with offshore drilling have been subjected to waves of criticism over the past several months. Some of that criticism has been fair, as when it focused on the selfish and corrupt acts of a few inspectors; but much of it has been misguided and unfair because it has been based on flawed assumptions and incomplete or inaccurate facts.
Regrettably, this second type of criticism has recently found its way to mainstream media outlets whose coverage has previously generally been reasonable and balanced. In an editorial dated October 28, the New Orleans Time-Picayune made the sweeping assertions that "government inspectors know little or nothing about crucial rig operations," that "inspectors likely were unable to identify problems because they did not understand how some important drilling processes worked," and that this was a farcical case of "the hens not even knowing how to recognize an egg."
These statements substituted rhetoric for factual accuracy and provided an extremely misleading picture of the roles of offshore drilling inspectors and more generally of the process by which our agency monitors and regulates offshore drilling. The coverage suggested that the inspectors are ignorant about rigs, derelict in their duties, and failed to perform their jobs. That is both wrong and unfair.
Fonte: White House