The US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement has come under fire in a new federal report which claims the regulator has not trained its inspectors sufficiently.

The Wall Street Journal reports that while the Interior Department report does not reveal any new faults in the already beleaguered regulator, the scope of its problems is causing alarm in governmental circles.

Among the findings was the claim that nearly half of all regulatory inspectors do not feel they have sufficient training to do their job properly, and many rely on rig workers to explain how complex machinery operates.

The report was ordered by Interior secretary Ken Salazar in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon spill, which began on April 20th following the failure of a subsea blowout preventer.

Following its publication, the bureau's director Michael Bromwich insisted that its recommendations "are being addressed - either directly or indirectly - by the ongoing reorganization that has already begun".

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