On Wednesday, Jan 23, 2002, Secretary Gale A Norton will join the Minerals Management Service in celebrating 20 years of outstanding service to America. Media are invited to attend a ceremony that will be held that day in the Yates Auditorium in the main Interior building, Washington, DC.

The agency was created in 1982 and adopted the mission of managing the oil, natural gas and other mineral resources on the outer continental shelf. MMS and its over 1,7 00 employees also strive to collect, verify and distribute mineral revenues generated from federal and American Indian land in a timely fashion.

MMS is the federal agency in the U.S. Department of the Interior that manages the nation's oil, natural gas and other mineral resources on the outer continental shelf in federal offshore waters. The agency also collects, accounts for and disburses mineral revenues from federal and Indian leases. These revenues totaled nearly $10 billion last year and more than $119 billion since the agency was created in 1982. Annually, nearly $1 billion from those revenues go into the Land and Water Conservation Fund for the acquisition and development of state and federal park and recreation lands.

--MMS-20 Years of Service to America--