On April 20, 2010, the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded off the coast of Louisiana. The explosion was so powerful that it sent a fireball into the sky visible up to thirty-five miles away. Eleven workers were killed and seventeen injured in what became the largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history. About 4.9 million barrels of oil leaked from the Macondo Prospect well into the environmentally sensitive Gulf of Mexico. The Deepwater Horizon disaster can be pertinently compared to the partial core meltdown of the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant, the explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger, or the explosion of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. All of these disasters were not the result of an error or equipment malfunction, but rather of a lack of ethical decision making or a lack of accountability on the part of the regulators and administrators charged with preventing such catastrophes from happening. would occur. Post-event investigations into the Deepwater Horizon oil spill found that the US government agency responsible for overseeing and regulating the oil industry was imbued with an ethical disregard for the regulations and professional standards it was charged with achieving . In the book “The Responsible Administrator,” author Terry L. Cooper explains how these abuses of power and a culture of unethical conduct can thrive and, more importantly, how such unethical behavior can be prevented. Cooper advocates a dynamic “design approach” to ethics that public administrators must implement both in analyzing ethical dilemmas and in making ethical decisions. The United States Department of the Interior is the federal executive department of the United States government that is d.... .. middle of paper...... under pressure. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar responded by reorganizing the Minerals Management Service into three distinct and separate agencies. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management is “responsible for the sustainable development of the conventional and renewable energy resources of the outer continental shelf, including resource assessment, planning, and other leasing-related activities.” The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement is responsible for “ensuring comprehensive oversight, safety and environmental protection in all offshore energy activities.” The third agency under Salazar's reorganization, the Office of Natural Resources Revenue, is "responsible for the royalty and revenue management function, including revenue collection and distribution, audit, compliance and resource management ". (Department of the Interior, 2010)