Associated Press
Matthew Daly
December 7, 2010

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Obama administration should sharply increase the number of offshore drilling inspectors, conduct more surprise inspections and stiffen penalties on companies found to violate federal rules on drilling, says a report by the Interior Department's top watchdog.

The report by the inspector general of the agency echoes one issued in September by a safety oversight board convened by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar.

Both reports emphasized that inspectors from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement are badly outnumbered and in some cases poorly trained, without clear ethics rules.

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