But it created an outcry in international capitals that resulted in waivers being granted to non-US oil majors, effectively sanctioning American oil companies instead of Iran.
In September, the industrious Mr. Devaney delivered three reports to Congress detailing widespread corruption in the Minerals Management Service, the division responsible for granting offshore oil leases and collecting royalties.
Mr. Upton said the administration needed to speed the granting of oil drilling permits in the Gulf and off the Alaskan coast, both of which have been slowed by environmental and safety reviews.
With governments keen to continue granting palm oil companies large-scale concessions across Africa, the race to ensure that this is an industry that develops along sustainable guidelines seems far from won.
Nevertheless, Franco-Chadian relations were soured by the granting of oil drilling rights to the American Exxon company in 1999.
If an agency's main purpose is to make money off of an industry (by the granting of oil drilling leases, for example), but also to police that industry, then there is an inherent, built-in conflict.
Bruce Babbitt, Bill Clinton's interior secretary, was hardly shy about granting oil and gas leases, despite Bush administration propaganda to the contrary.
Mr. Hussein "cleverly exploited" sanctions in a variety of ways, granting "oil and humanitarian supply contracts to those willing to bend the rules in Iraq's favor," Mr. Schweich said.
The new Greenlandic government is now enthusiastically granting licences to oil firms, such as ExxonMobil; companies are already prospecting over 137,000 square kilometres of the nearby seas.
In elections in 2013 Siumut returned to power at the head of a coalition presided over by Greenland's first female prime minister, Aleqa Hammond, whose government placed a moratorium on granting licences for oil exploration and began requiring royalty payments from foreign concerns before they began mining.
