Luthi nominated to MMS director post

US Sec. of the Interior Dirk A. Kempthorne has nominated Randall Luthi, currently deputy director of the US Fish and Wildlife Service, as director of the US Minerals Management Service.

July 23, 2007

3 min read

Nick Snow
Washington Correspondent

WASHINGTON, DC, July 23 -- US Sec. of the Interior Dirk A. Kempthorne has nominated Randall Luthi, currently deputy director of the US Fish and Wildlife Service, as director of the US Minerals Management Service. He will succeed Johnnie Burton, who resigned after 5 years on May 31.

Kempthorne said Luthi's past experience qualifies him for the job. Luthi served as a former speaker and majority leader in Wyoming's house of representatives, a senior attorney for environmental regulations in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's office of general counsel, and as an attorney at DOI's solicitor's office. He also is a rancher and was a partner in the Thayne, Wyo., law firm of Luthi & Voyles before his FWS appointment in February.

MMS said Kempthorne nominated Luthi on the recommendation of C. Stephen Allred, DOI assistant secretary for land and minerals management.

Luthi will take the helm of a DOI agency that House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Nick J. Rahall (D-W.Va.) says has badly mismanaged federal oil and gas royalty collections. HR 2337, which the committee approved in June, contains provisions that would require MMS to conduct a minimum of 550 royalty audits/year and limit royalty in-kind payments to oil needed to refill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

The new MMS director also will inherit the deepwater royalty exemption dispute arising from MMS's issuing leases in 1998 and 1999 without price thresholds. Burton began negotiations with leaseholders to voluntarily accept new terms and MMS reached agreements with several before she left. Several US House and Senate members want to bar those who haven't from participating in future offshore lease sales.

MMS said as majority leader and speaker of Wyoming's house, Luthi helped formulate state budgets which relied heavily on oil and gas royalties and severance taxes. He also was a legislative member of the Energy Council, an organization of lawmakers from energy-producing states and provinces and private energy-related industries which met quarterly to discuss technology and policies.

The nomination was the second by Kempthorne for director of a DOI agency, which deals directly with the oil and gas industry. On May 30, he nominated James L. Caswell, director of Idaho's species conservation office, as US Bureau of Land Management director to succeed Kathleen Clarke, who resigned in January.

Caswell testified before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee as part of the confirmation process on July 19. A committee spokesman told OGJ that the committee is scheduled to vote on the nomination on July 25 and would send it to the Senate floor if it's approved.

Contact Nick Snow at [email protected].