"Inspectors Adrift in Rig-Safety Push"

"NEW ORLEANS -- Seven months after the Deepwater Horizon exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, the troubled federal agency that oversees offshore drilling has been revamped, renamed and given a new leader with a mandate to turn what critics called an industry lapdog into an effective watchdog.

But there's at least one big change the agency hasn't made: fixing its deeply flawed inspection program. As it has for four decades, that program sends inspectors armed with little more than checklists and pencils into the Gulf to ensure the safety of more than 3,500 oil platforms and drilling rigs.

A Wall Street Journal examination finds that these inspectors have been overruled by industry, undermined by their own managers and outmatched by the sheer number of offshore installations they oversee. Inspectors come into the job with little or no hands-on experience in deep-water drilling, learning as they go."

Leslie Eaton, Stephen Power and Russell Gold report for the Wall Street Journal December 3, 2010.