Obama says Salazar acted too slowly to overhaul MMS

President Obama is acknowledging that Interior Secretary Ken Salazar — and the White House — did not move fast enough to overhaul the former Minerals Management Service (MMS). “What Ken would admit, and I would admit, and what we both have to take responsibility for, is that we did not fully change the institutional conflicts that were inherent in that office,” Obama told Rolling Stone, in an interview published online Tuesday. “If you ask why did we not get that done, the very simple answer is that this a big government with a lot of people, and changing bureaucracies and agencies is a time-consuming process. We just didn’t get to it fast enough.” He said he personally delivered that assessment to his Interior secretary. “I had to just let him know, ‘You’re accountable, you’re responsible, I expect you to change it.’” Obama added he has “confidence that he can change it, and I think he’s in the process of doing so.”...more