Interior Department was a fun place to work

[Truthmatters]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/11/washington/11royalty.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&oref=slogin


To bad the law had to get involved

Wide-Ranging Ethics Scandal Emerges at Interior Dept.


By CHARLIE SAVAGE
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.

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” besets 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.

 

[Truthmatters]

Damn people are you that enured to scadal?

This is a big fat juicy one.

 

[Jeepers]

Drill baby drill....

 

[dilloduck]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/11/washington/11royalty.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&oref=slogin


To bad the law had to get involved

Were you into the weed or the coke ?

 

[RetiredGySgt]

Ya just one BIG glaring problem with blaming Bush. All the EMPLOYEES involved are CAREER Government employees. Several with over 20 years time on the job.

 

[Red Dawn]

Ya just one BIG glaring problem with blaming Bush. All the EMPLOYEES involved are CAREER Government employees. Several with over 20 years time on the job.

So the managers Bush appointed to manage and provide oversight to the Department didn't do their job.

Heck of a job Brownie!

 

[dilloduck]

Ya just one BIG glaring problem with blaming Bush. All the EMPLOYEES involved are CAREER Government employees. Several with over 20 years time on the job.

It's cool---they were getting pretty damn low on trash to sling. AT least it ain't about a pig-----yet.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

So the managers Bush appointed to manage and provide oversight to the Department didn't do their job.

Heck of a job Brownie!

Actually that would be wrong. Or did the Democrats do the investigation?

Again for the slow all the people involved are CAREER Government employees and the Inspector General of the Interior Department investigated when tipped off.

Or did you miss the fact the Investigation began in 2006? Or that the Democrats shut down a Congressional investigation started by the Republicans?

 

[Jeepers]

It's cool---they were getting pretty damn low on trash to sling. AT least it ain't about a pig-----yet.

No shit.. pigs too... christ man.. I went into the wrong line of work...

 

[Red Dawn]

Actually that would be wrong. Or did the Democrats do the investigation?

Again for the slow all the people involved are CAREER Government employees and the Inspector General of the Interior Department investigated when tipped off.



Or did you miss the fact the Investigation began in 2006? Or that the Democrats shut down a Congressional investigation started by the Republicans?

I'm not sure why you feel its neccessary to lie to defend your heroes in the Bush adminstration:

As leaders of the Senate's Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., and Wyden D-Ore. asked the inspector general to examine these issues last year.

ABC News: Sex for Oil? Reports Blast Interior Dept.

 

[Truthmatters]

But two of the highest-ranking officials who were subjects of the investigations will apparently escape penalty. Both retired during the investigation, rendering them safe from any administrative punishment, and the Justice Department has declined to prosecute them on the charges suggested by the inspector general.

One of them is Ms. Denett, who oversaw the Denver-based royalty-in-kind program from Washington. The report contends that she manipulated the contracting process to steer the consulting work to Mr. Mayberry, her friend and former special assistant.

Six other companies submitted bids for the contract, spending more than $90,000 on their proposals. The report said an Interior Department procurement lawyer described the arrangement as one in which “the fix is in throughout — this is tainted from the beginning, that is totally improper.”

Ms. Denett did not return a message left at her home on Wednesday with her husband, Paul A. Denett, who was the top procurement official in the White House Office of Management and Budget until he resigned this month. He declined to comment.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

I'm not sure why you feel its neccessary to lie to defend your heroes in the Bush adminstration:

Sorry to burst your bubble but there are other stories out there, the one I read shows the investigation started in 2006 after the Inpsector general's office was called by a tipster. It further stated that Republicans had started a probe and the probe was stopped. Republicans were asking the Dems to reopen the probe.

But hey you go with that lie thing. You wouldn't know the truth if a 500 pound bird landed on your shoulder ripped your head off and shit the truth down your neck.

 

[Modbert]

Well think about it this way.

All the employees were getting a bigger bang for their buck.



Seriously, this doesn't surprise me at all.

 

[Red Dawn]

Sorry to burst your bubble but there are other stories out there, the one I read shows the investigation started in 2006 after the Inpsector general's office was called by a tipster. It further stated that Republicans had started a probe and the probe was stopped. Republicans were asking the Dems to reopen the probe.

But hey you go with that lie thing. You wouldn't know the truth if a 500 pound bird landed on your shoulder ripped your head off and shit the truth down your neck.

These abuses occured in the Department's Royalty-In-Kind program. And guess what? It was republicans who expanded the RIK's relationship with industry, and it was Democrats who were complaining about the RIK and it was democrats taking the lead that RIK be invesigated:

Royalty-in-Kind (instead of cash payment) program expands under Bush

Under the Bush administration, the Minerals Management Service (MMS) dramatically expanded its program to take oil and gas royalties-in-kind (RIK), meaning the industry gives the government a portion of the oil and gas it takes from federal lands rather than paying royalties in cash. Much of the oil taken under this program has been used to fill the federal government’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve. A series of pilot programs in the 1990’s were the precursor to this expansion. These pilot programs almost consistently lost money for the government. In January 2003, an analysis by the Government Accountability Office concluded that MMS was unable to determine whether it was losing revenue through its RIK pilot programs.[72]

Reps. Nick Rahall (D-W.V.) and Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) wrote to then-Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton to demand that expansion of the RIK programs be halted until data could show that the American taxpayer was getting a fair deal.

In the Energy Policy Act of 2005, Congress gave the Secretary of Interior expanded authority to accept royalties-in-kind but required that the Secretary report to Congress each year from 2006 to 2015 on the details of these royalty collections.

The Energy Policy Act of 2005, which expanded the RIK program was authored by Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) and cosponsored by Rep. Richard Pombo (R-CA) and William Thomas (R-CA).

In February 2007, the Senate Energy Committee asked the Government Accountability Office to update its research on RIK in light of “widely reported and well documented problems that the Mineral Management Services (MMS) has had with its royalty collection programs.” Committee Chair Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) said, “Given the growth of this program because of the Energy Bill, its impact on the Treasury and the problems that MMS has had with recordkeeping, we think it’s just good government to have GAO take a closer look at this program.”

wiki

 

[RetiredGySgt]

These abuses occured in the Department's Royalty-In-Kind program. And guess what? It was republicans who expanded the RIK's relationship with industry, and it was Democrats who were complaining about the RIK and it was democrats taking the lead that RIK be invesigated:

And yet you have dodged the fact that the investigation started not from Congress but from with in the Agency itself. Further you have ignored that these people are CAREER Government employees , not appointed and have worked for Government a LONG time before Bush ever even thought of being President. You have ignored that Republicans started a probe that was stopped when the new Congress took over in 2007. You have Ignored that REPUBLICANS ask for the probe to be restarted.

Once again, you partisan hack, these people are CAREER employees, not appointees. That Bush had nothing to do with them or their actions.

 

[editec]

$10 billion dollars is ALL we make for the oil that is drilled from our land?

That's it?!!

We're getting robbed.

No wonder the Republicans are so bent on drilling for new source of oil.

They're going to give their pals the deal of the century.

 

[Red Dawn]

And yet you have dodged the fact that the investigation started not from Congress but from with in the Agency itself. Further you have ignored that these people are CAREER Government employees , not appointed and have worked for Government a LONG time before Bush ever even thought of being President. You have ignored that Republicans started a probe that was stopped when the new Congress took over in 2007. You have Ignored that REPUBLICANS ask for the probe to be restarted.

Once again, you partisan hack, these people are CAREER employees, not appointees. That Bush had nothing to do with them or their actions.

Still defending Bush after so many years of incompetence and abject failure?


The Dept. of the Interior has been rife with corruption under Bush. Google Steven Griles, the number two man at the department and a Bush appointee.

Appointing bad, or criminal leadership is the first step towards creating the conditions for corruption. That's what your president did.

And it was your party that expanded RIK's cozy relationship with industry lobbyiests - over the objection of Democrats. It almost certainly was expansion of the ties and links between RIK and industry lobbyiests that set the conditions in which corruption took root.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

Still defending Bush after so many years of incompetence and abject failure?


The Dept. of the Interior has been rife with corruption under Bush. Google Steven Griles, the number two man at the department and a Bush appointee.

Appointing bad, or criminal leadership is the first step towards creating the conditions for corruption. That's what your president did.

And it was your party that expanded RIK's cozy relationship with industry lobbyiests - over the objection of Democrats. It almost certainly was expansion of the ties and links between RIK and industry lobbyiests that set the conditions in which corruption took root.

And yet you dodge again. NONE of the people were appointees, they are all career Government employees. And they were found out BY the Agency.

 

[Truthmatters]

But two of the highest-ranking officials who were subjects of the investigations will apparently escape penalty. Both retired during the investigation, rendering them safe from any administrative punishment, and the Justice Department has declined to prosecute them on the charges suggested by the inspector general.

One of them is Ms. Denett, who oversaw the Denver-based royalty-in-kind program from Washington. The report contends that she manipulated the contracting process to steer the consulting work to Mr. Mayberry, her friend and former special assistant.

Six other companies submitted bids for the contract, spending more than $90,000 on their proposals. The report said an Interior Department procurement lawyer described the arrangement as one in which “the fix is in throughout — this is tainted from the beginning, that is totally improper.”

Ms. Denett did not return a message left at her home on Wednesday with her husband, Paul A. Denett, who was the top procurement official in the White House Office of Management and Budget until he resigned this month. He declined to comment.

It seems pretty odd that you claim they were all long time employees?

How do you know this info on their backgrounds and please provide your source?

 

[ABikerSailor]

RGS, you can't hold Bush blameless on this one, as you know as well as I do, that if there is a bunch of garbage happening within the unit, the CO is held responsible for being unable to control their people, whether their department is admin or mechanics or supply, the Skipper is still responsible.

And.....judging from the leadership of the past 8 years under that idiot frat boy Bush Jr., I can kinda see how something like this would happen. What happens to the people under your command when you slack off and start not caring (like Bush Jr. appears to have done)? You end up with mid-level supervisors that start abusing power.

This is yet another example, they've been surfacing with regularity over the past 4 years or so.