Several recent high profile cases have put into question the benefits of such partnerships. In a Washington Post article, “How the Minerals Management Service’s Partnership with Industry Led to Failure,” the authors chronicle the evolution of the Minerals Management Service (MMS) and the unusual relationship it cultivated with the industry it was charged to regulate. In the end, the article points out that “industry innovation, as it often does, had outrun and overpowered the government’s regulatory prowess, with disastrous results. They were partners, but they were not equals.”

Three recent IBM Center reports present a different perspective, showing the value of regulatory partnerships. These reports offer lessons learned on how to create and effectively maintain regulatory partnerships so they don’t result in the failures highlighted in the Post article on the now-defunct MMS (replaced by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement).