The Minerals Management Service is charged with collecting the royalties that oil companies pay for drilling on federal land, including offshore areas. So, in the middle of the debate over whether we should open more lands to their careful attention, just how are they doing in their task of overseeing these lands for the public?
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."
Oh, well. A little fraternizing with the folks they're supposed to be watching. In a no-bid Republican administration where the worst violators of safety and environmental rules are routinely "punished" by giving them positions overseeing the programs they wrecked, this seems par for the course. How bad could it really be?
The investigations exposed "a culture of ethical failure" and an agency rife with conflicts of interest, Inspector General Earl E. Devaney said.
Between 2002 and 2006, 19 oil marketers — nearly a third of the Denver office staff — received gifts and gratuities from oil and gas companies, including Chevron Corp., Shell, Hess Corp. and Denver-based Gary-Williams Energy Corp., the investigators found.
"Employees frequently consumed alcohol at industry functions, had used cocaine and marijuana, and had sexual relationships with oil and natural gas company representatives" who referred to some of the government workers as the "MMS Chicks."
The "MMS Chicks." Isn't that just how you want companies that are already getting multi-billion dollar rewards from the government to think of the people who are supposed to be regulating them? Doesn't that make you really want to offer more land to oil companies, knowing that they'll be under such close, personal, intimate observation from the people in charge of making sure that the oil companies pay what they owe to the American people?
Still. A little sex, a little drugs, a few trips. It's not like they were...
The director of the royalty program had a consulting job on the side for a company that paid him $30,000 for marketing its services to various oil and gas companies, the report said.
Ah, hell. And here I had thought the Bush administation had only made a joke out of the EPA. And FEMA. And OSHA. And MSHA. And all of us left paying the bill while the oil companies stick it to the whole country. The only thing worse would be if we were seriously considering opening more land.
That look on the faces of all those people chanting "drill, baby, drill" at the GOP convention? Lust.