House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said on Thursday that she hasn't heard any complaints from her members about President Barack Obama's response to the Gulf oil spill.

Pelosi denied any dissent in Democratic ranks over how the Obama administration has handled an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico that has been leaking for over a month.

"No, I haven't heard those," Pelosi said of rumors of griping among some Democrats in response to the spill. "I honestly can say I've heard no complaints from my members about the way the president has handled it."

Federal officials appeared optimistic Thursday that oil giant BP’s effort to cap its gushing Gulf of Mexico oil well is succeeding.

The head of the Minerals Management Service (MMS) has resigned.

MMS, which is charged with monitoring and regulating offshore drilling, has come under intense criticism since the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar told a House panel this morning that Director Elizabeth Birnbaum had stepped down.

“She did it on her own terms and her own volition,” he said at a House Appropriations Committee hearing.

Salazar called Birnbaum “very strong and very effective” and said she had helped to implement reforms at the long-troubled agency. Birnbaum has helped to address a “culture of corruption,” Salazar said.

“Liz Birnbaum has been a strong leader, and we have done tremendous work,” he said.

Birnbaum has held the post since July of 2009.

“I’m grateful to the President and to the Secretary for allowing me to serve this Administration and the country,” Birnbaum said in a statement.  “It’s been a great privilege to serve as Director of the MMS.  I have enormous admiration for the men and women of the MMS who do a difficult job under challenging circumstances.  I’m hopeful that the reforms that the Secretary and the Administration are undertaking will resolve the flaws in the current system that I inherited.”

A report released earlier this week revealed MMS employees had accepted numerous gifts from oil companies and had viewed pornography on government computers. At least one inspector had used meth.

The report -- the latest in a years-long series of negative reports about the agency -- addressed misconduct that occurred under the Bush administration. Salazar has asked the inspector general for a new study that explores the agency since he implemented ethics reforms.

MMS has also come under fire for allegedly lax environmental oversight under both the Bush administration and President Barack Obama -- including its approval last year of the BP drilling project that went catastrophically awry in the Gulf of Mexico.

The Obama administration is reviewing the agency's environmental analysis process, and has also asked Congress to lengthen the time it has to review company drilling plans before granting permits.

Salazar has decided to split MMS into three branches. Birnbaum is not expected to be assigned to any of those agencies.

When announcing the splintering of the agency earlier this month, Salazar declined to directly address Birnbaum's role.

Rep. Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.), chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, said he was not satisfied that Birnbaum's resignation would change the culture of the agency.

“The departure of Elizabeth Birnbaum from MMS does not address the root problem. She has only been the public face of MMS for 11 months and the most serious allegations occurred prior to her tenure. This might on the surface be a good start but must not be the end game," Rahall said.

Obama will continue a ban on new deepwater drilling permits for six months and delay drilling in Arctic waters.

Our daily news summary will be back on Friday.

Over on our main site, my colleague Russell Berman has a great piece about the implications of the oil spill for President Obama and other Democrats. "The massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is fast becoming a political liability for Democrats, threatening the image of competence that the Obama administration has used as a trump card over its predecessor," he writes.

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) isn’t satisfied with Interior Secretary Ken Salazar’s plan to split up the Interior Department's Minerals Management Service, the troubled agency that regulates offshore oil-and-gas drilling and is facing a torrent of criticism for allegedly lax oversight.

“While I appreciate your recent announcement that the Department will reorganize MMS, I fear that a culture of incompetence and corruption will still exist at the agency unless broad scale personnel changes accompany that reorganization,” Shaheen wrote in a letter to Salazar Wednesday.

Shaheen said the tough new report about MMS by Interior’s inspector general reinforces her concerns. “It is time to abolish MMS and start anew with a new agency and new people,” she writes.

If BP fails to plug its ruptured offshore oil well, intense underground pressure would be enough to pump vast quantities of thick brown crude into the Gulf of Mexico for months, even years.

If even BP’s backup plans fail, it would cause a pollution disaster "heretofore unseen by humanity," said one expert.

It is this rapidly accelerating realization that is giving BP’s attempt Wednesday to cap the well new political and environmental urgency.

President Obama says other approaches might be viable if latest effort fails.