Just DRILL Me, Baby....

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-06-2008
Just DRILL Me, Baby....
9
Wed, 09-10-2008 - 11:51pm
That's my nomination for the title of the latest round of corruption/scandal/illegality from those Grand Old Perverts in the Bush Administration:





Published: September 10, 2008













WASHINGTON — As Congress prepares to debate expansion of drilling in taxpayer-owned coastal waters, the Interior Department agency that collects oil and gas royalties has been caught up in a wide-ranging ethics scandal — including allegations of financial self-dealing, accepting gifts from energy companies, cocaine use and sexual misconduct.



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Kevin Moloney for The New York Times


Office of the Minerals Management Service outside Denver.







In three reports delivered to Congress on Wednesday, the department’s inspector general, Earl E. Devaney, found wrongdoing by a dozen current and former employees of the Minerals Management Service, which collects about $10 billion in royalties annually and is one of the government’s largest sources of revenue other than taxes.

“A culture of ethical failure” pervades the agency, Mr. Devaney wrote in a cover memo.

The reports portray a dysfunctional organization that has been riddled with conflicts of interest, unprofessional behavior and a free-for-all atmosphere for much of the Bush administration’s watch.

The highest-ranking official criticized in the reports is Lucy Q. Denett, the former associate director of minerals revenue management, who retired earlier this year as the inquiry was progressing.

The investigations are the latest installment in a series of scathing inquiries into the program’s management and competence in recent years. While previous reports have focused on problems the agency had in collecting millions of dollars owed to the Treasury, and hinted at personal misconduct, the new reports go far beyond any previous study in revealing serious concerns with the integrity and behavior of the agency’s officials.

In one of the new reports, investigators concluded that Ms. Denett worked with two aides to steer a lucrative consulting contract to one of the aides after he retired, violating competitive procurement rules.

Two other reports focus on “a culture of substance abuse and promiscuity” in the service’s royalty-in-kind program. That part of the agency collects about $4 billion a year in oil and gas rather than cash royalties.

Based in suburban Denver and modeled to operate like a private sector energy company, the decade-old royalty-in-kind program sells oil and gas on the open market. Its employees are subject to government ethics rules, such as restrictions on taking gifts from people and companies with whom they conduct official business.

One of the reports says that the officials viewed themselves as exempt from those limits, indulging themselves in the expense-account-fueled world of oil and gas executives.

The reports provoked immediate outrage in Congress. Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat who is chairman of the Public Lands and Forests Subcommittee, accused the Minerals Management Service on the Senate floor Wednesday of “a pattern of abuses and mismanagement” that is costing taxpayers billions.

And Senator Bill Nelson, Democrat of Florida, suggested that Congress should not lift its ban on offshore drilling — a hot-button issue in his state — because of the problems identified.

The report says that eight officials in the royalty program accepted gifts from energy companies whose value exceeded limits set by ethics rules — including golf, ski and paintball outings; meals and drinks; and tickets to a Toby Keith concert, a Houston Texans football game and a Colorado Rockies baseball game.

The investigation also concluded that several of the officials “frequently consumed alcohol at industry functions, had used cocaine and marijuana, and had sexual relationships with oil and gas company representatives.”

The investigation separately found that the program’s manager mixed official and personal business. In sometimes lurid detail, the report also accuses him of having intimate relations with two subordinates, one of whom regularly sold him cocaine.

The culture of the organization “appeared to be devoid of both the ethical standards and internal controls sufficient to protect the integrity of this vital revenue-producing program,” one report said.

The director of the Minerals Management Service, Randall Luthi, said in a conference call with reporters that the officials implicated in the reports had violated the public’s trust.

“When you come to work for the federal government, the American people expect the best of you,” he said, adding, “I am not going to leave this post in January without addressing this problem.” Mr. Luthi, who became the service director in July 2007, said that the agency had requested the investigation after receiving whistle-blower complaints in the spring of 2006, and that it had already made several changes. A spokesman for Mr. Devaney declined to comment.

A former official named in the report, Jimmy W. Mayberry, pleaded guilty to a felony conflict-of-interest charge in August and faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Now in darkness, world stops turning
Ashes where the bodies burning
No more war pigs have the power
Hand of God has sturck the hour
Day of judgement, God is calling
On their knees, the war pigs crawling Begging
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2007
Thu, 09-11-2008 - 12:03am

Ugh...why am I not surprised?

Sopal

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iVillage Member
Registered: 09-08-2008
Thu, 09-11-2008 - 12:10am
Okay. This is out of control. More proof that the GOP's hiring standards are really low. I can't imagine working where it is a "free for all"? Total chaos and at the mercy of the inofficial leaders. It's time to clean house!

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-06-2008
Thu, 09-11-2008 - 12:13am
Well, if nothing else, at least now we might have an idea who booked the band "Hookers And Blow" to perform at one of the big parties at the Republican convention.

Now in darkness, world stops turning
Ashes where the bodies burning
No more war pigs have the power
Hand of God has sturck the hour
Day of judgement, God is calling
On their knees, the war pigs crawling Begging
iVillage Member
Registered: 09-06-2008
Thu, 09-11-2008 - 12:14am
It's time to clean house!


Too right. White House. And House of Representatives, too. And Senate.

Now in darkness, world stops turning
Ashes where the bodies burning
No more war pigs have the power
Hand of God has sturck the hour
Day of judgement, God is calling
On their knees, the war pigs crawling Begging
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2007
Thu, 09-11-2008 - 12:45am

Yeah....I'd posted an ABC news video of the Republican politicians being wined and dined by lobbyists in Minneapolis and it had a clip of the scene with Hookers and Blow playing music in the background.

Sopal

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iVillage Member
Registered: 10-25-2006
Thu, 09-11-2008 - 1:22am
I love it. The Republican administration's appointees give the federal gov't a bad name and then all the Republicans say that the government can't manage anything and waste taxpayer dollars! And they're gonna get rid of earmarks....yeah, right!

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http://www.pnhp.org/news/2009/october/meet_the_new_health_.php

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQTBYQlQ7yM

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-07-2008
Thu, 09-11-2008 - 7:09pm

"The investigation separately found that the program’s manager mixed official and personal business. In sometimes lurid detail, the report also accuses him of having intimate relations with two subordinates, one of whom regularly sold him cocaine."


Any information on the background of this subordinate?

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-08-2008
Thu, 09-11-2008 - 9:15pm
Ah come-on.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Fri, 09-12-2008 - 2:37pm
Dh found the story this morning and he was terribly amused by it. I have to tell him your headline.