Oil, gas agency has new leader

The Minerals Management Service, the federal agency responsible for collecting royalty payments for oil and gas exploration, has a new director.

Randall Luthi, who has been deputy director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service since February, replaces Johnnie Burton, who resigned this year after questions about whether the service was aggressive enough in collecting royalty payments from oil companies.


During the Clinton administration, language was left out of a lease program a provision that was supposed to suspend royalty waivers for deepwater Gulf of Mexico leases when oil and gas prices are high.

The department has reached agreements with about six companies that would reinstate the price thresholds for production from October 2006 onward, but congressional critics said the agency hasn’t been aggressive enough.

In announcing Luthi’s appointment, Assistant Interior Secretary C. Stephen Allred said that Luthi, previously a Republican leader of the Wyoming legislature, developed an understanding of the importance of royalties as a Wyoming lawmaker. The Minerals Management Service collects oil and gas royalties for federally owned land as well as offshore.

Times-Picayune