The head of the troubled U.S. agency that oversees offshore drilling resigned under pressure Thursday, Democratic sources said, as President
Obama moved more aggressively to take charge of the Gulf oil spill.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar confirmed the departure of Minerals Management Service Director Elizabeth Birnbaum in testimony before a congressional subcommittee hearing Thursday morning, CBS Radio News reports.
"She did it on her own terms and her own volition," Salazar told members of Congress. "All I can really tell this committee is she is a good public servant."
CBS Radio News Correspondent Bob Fuss reports that Birnbaum was supposed to testify at the hearing with Salazar.
Birnbaum was brought in less than a year ago to try to revamp the Minerals Management Service, or MMS, but lost her job after a new report of how truly bad things are in the agency, Fuss reports.
"She helped us in moving forward in addressing what was a very broken system that we found when we came into the Department of Interior," Salazar said during Thursday's hearing.
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