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# Elizabeth Birnbaum Resigns Amid Pressure
- URL: https://www.foodconsumer.org/elizabeth_birnbaum_resigns_amid_pressure_27050244/
- Published: 2010-05-27T15:38:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-22T16:16:49.000Z
- Description: Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced that Minerals Management Service director Elizabeth Birnbaum resigned amid pressure over the Gulf oil spill. Critics faulted her for not fixing longstanding agency problems; the agency will be split into three parts.
- Author: Rachel Stockton
- Tags: Politics, #vivvo-import

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced the resignation of Elizabeth Birnbaum, director of the Minerals Management Service before a Congressional hearing on Thursday. 

According to sources, she resigned amid the pressure and controversy surrounding the oil spill that has rattled the world of off shore drilling for the last five weeks. Last week, Birnbaum testified before a Congressional hearing, and was largely ignored by her boss, Ken Salazar (New York Times).

Elizabeth Birnbaum had been criticized long before the oil spill in the gulf, however. Even some of her colleagues, as well as critics from both parties did not believe she was up to the job, which she began in July of 2009.

According to some, she virtually did nothing to improve the problems that have surrounded the agency for the last ten years. On May 25, the New York Times reported that Agency scientists stated, “The same agency managers who during the Bush administration ignored or suppressed scientists’ concerns about the safety and environmental risks of some off-shore drilling plans are still there doing the same things.”

Since the oil spill, President Obama has criticized the agency for its “cozy” relationship with the private sector. 

What was once considered a plus, her inexperience with the oil and gas industry, may have, in fact, been her ultimate downfall.

Interior Secretary Salazar also announced that the agency will be split into 3 parts in an effort to efficiently deal with the problems it currently faces.