SAN FRANCISCO -- Guiding ships through the San Francisco Bay, with its bridges and treacherous currents, is a high-stakes business. But the board that oversees the ship pilots who ply these waters is a low-profile state agency that has operated largely under the radar for decades.

The Board of Pilot Commissioners answers officially to the governor, who appoints its members, but has no formal mechanism or timeline for doing do. While its meetings are open to the public, it has not submitted a report to the governor since 1957.

"We try and keep it quiet," Board of Pilot Commissioners Executive Director Capt. Patrick A. Moloney told federal investigators in November after a cargo ship sideswiped the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge.

"If nobody up there in Sacramento knows we're here and we handle things, we think we're doing good," he said then, according to recently released transcripts.

But lawmakers in Sacramento and investigators in Washington have taken a strong interest in the board following last fall's incident, and the resulting spill of 53,000 gallons of toxic fuel into the San Francisco Bay.

State legislators want to bring new accountability and transparency to the board, which licenses and oversees the 61 San Francisco bar pilots exclusively authorized to guide cargo, cruise and occasionally military ships in the bays here.

Lawmakers are considering two separate bills that would force the board to answer to the Legislature.

Currently, the Department of Finance can adjust the board's budget, and the Department of Consumer Affairs provides administrative support, but no state agency exerts a direct oversight role.

Last year, when a state assemblyman asked the board for any documents on its operations, Moloney replied: "The board self-audits." He added, according to the transcripts, that "the board and its regulated community are unusual in the state bureaucracy."

Most of the 300 boards and commissions the governor appoints issue some type of report on their activities, said Rachel Cameron, a spokeswoman for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

One of the bills, by Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, would require the board to report annually to lawmakers on its finances and activities, such as vessel movements, the membership of the pilots association and mishaps.

The other more sweeping measure, by Sen. Pat Wiggins, D-Santa Rosa, would require more thorough reporting to lawmakers, as well as audits by the Department of Finance. Most notably, it would bring the board under the oversight of the Business, Transportation and Housing Agency.

Proponents of the measures say either would open a new chapter of accountability for a board that Moloney described as "such a small organization that we completely disappear in the minutia of state operations."

Officially known as the Board of Pilot Commissioners for the Bays of San Francisco, San Pablo and Suisun, the panel of seven people includes pilots, shipping industry representatives and others. The board coordinates training, reviews mishaps and can discipline pilots.

The transcripts of Moloney's interviews by the National Transportation Safety Board provide a glimpse of a small, clubby world where the overseers -- the board -- socialize with the people they're supposed to regulate -- the pilots.

"You know, I personally know all the pilots, and, you know, I've been doing this for 14 years now," Moloney said in the NTSB's Cosco Busan investigation. "I'm friends with most of them."

"You get to know the guys. We're all professional peers, and you tend to like each other," though he allowed, "there's a few who are not very likable."

Among other duties, Moloney told the NTSB he coordinates mishap inquiries and writes final reports. Moloney said he usually writes his incident reports directly off the account a pilot himself has submitted.

"They beat themselves up worse than anybody else," he said of pilots involved in incidents. After a final incident report by Moloney, he said, "usually it's a handshake and, 'Hey, you know, I'll see you around the waterfront."'

During Moloney's 14-year tenure as executive director, the board has never revoked a pilot's license, he told the NTSB.

The pilot commissioners suspended the license of Capt. John Cota, at the helm of the Cosco Busan when it struck a bridge support in November, and later formally accused him of misconduct in the incident. A trial-like proceeding is planned for September and it could result in Cota being stripped of his license.

Generally in pilot-related incidents, Moloney said, the buck stops with the board, but the Cosco Busan episode had drawn "governor-level interest" and resulted in meetings with Schwarzenegger's aides.

Lawmakers in Sacramento signaled their new interest in the board April 9, when they unexpectedly brought two of Schwarzenegger's nominees before the Senate Rules Committee to answer questions in person, rather than questioning them solely in writing as planned.

Nominee James Tate, a human-resources specialist and "public" board member, had said in written testimony that he would view it as his greatest failing as a board member if shipping through the San Francisco Bay were to decline significantly.

Tate added at the committee hearing that as a bird-watcher who exercises frequently in a bay-front public park, he was "very upset" by the oil spill.

Another nominee, Eric Osen, said in his written testimony that his duty as a board member is to represent the tanker industry and his employer, San Ramon-based Chevron Shipping Co.

"I was a little surprised that ... your response was, 'The foremost goal is to represent your industry and your company,"' said Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, D-Oakland, during the hearing.

Osen said he meant that he is one of two industry representatives, serving with three public members and two ship pilots.

Both men were confirmed unanimously by the committee and the full Senate; they had already been serving for months prior to their confirmations.

The NTSB, too, has taken an interest in the board's operations and oversight, and is studying those issues among many other aspects of its investigation into the Cosco Busan incident, said Peter Knudson, an agency spokesman.

At the safety board's hearing two weeks ago, NTSB investigator Dr. Barry Strauch noted Cota was involved in 12 incidents of groundings or ship damage since being licensed in 1981.

"If you look at Captain Cota's record, there certainly appears to be a pattern. Why did the commission miss the pattern of performance degradation?" asked Strauch.

K. Michael Miller, president of the San Francisco Board of Pilot Commissioners, responded that Cota's incident rate was higher than that of other pilots, but only by a trivial margin. All in all "he had a very good career and a very safe career," Miller said.

Miller said he personally supports the Yee bill that would require an annual report of the board's activities to the Legislature. He also backs an idea, from the competing bill, of bringing the board underneath the umbrella of the Business, Transportation and Housing Agency.

"The more the public and the government of the state of California know about the Board, its mission, and its activities, the better served the public will be," Miller said in an e-mail message to The Associated Press. "And the better off the Board will be. We have a good story to tell."