Oil for sex scandal hits Interior Department

[Ah Xoc Kin]

Sep 11 2008
WASHINGTON - Government officials handling billions of dollars in oil royalties engaged in illicit sex with employees of energy companies they were dealing with and received numerous gifts from them, federal investigators said Wednesday.

The alleged transgressions involve 13 Interior Department employees in Denver and Washington. Their alleged improprieties include rigging contracts, working part-time as private oil consultants, and having sexual relationships with — and accepting golf and ski trips and dinners from — oil company employees, according to three reports released Wednesday by the Interior Department's inspector general.

The reports describe a fraternity house atmosphere inside the Denver Minerals Management Service office responsible for marketing the oil and gas that energy companies barter to the government instead of making cash royalty payments for drilling on federal lands.

Between 2002 and 2006, nearly a third of the 55-person staff in the Denver office received gifts and gratuities from oil and gas companies, the investigators found.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26644351/

[TwilightGardener]

1. I sorta get the contract rigging, gifts, corruption--the sex thing, though...WTF?

[agentS]

2. They literally screwed the country

Why have an Dept. of the Interior if the employees are that easy to seduce/manipulate?

Sex, Drugs, Rocks, and oil...it sounds like a hard rock song.

[phantom power]

3. Those Denver Minerals Management guys threw the best parties.

[Ah Xoc Kin]

4. a culture under Bush

This is what happens when you have a
"friend of Big Oil" (Big pharma, Big tech big whatever)
in the White House. Propriety and duty go right out
the window.

[Peregrine Took]

5. Sounds like a rat's nest of Bush patronage hacks to me. Ordinary civil

servants would never have the temerity to be that outrageous - might lose their jobs, for one thing (and that is the number 1 nightmare for any civil servant.

Never do anything that might endanger your job, pension, etc.

[JohnWxy]

6. Just like the Commodites Futures Trading Commission you have to have a ssecond tier monitoring the

Offices tasked with monitoring the activities of the businesses. With two offices/agencies monitoring it's harder to get away with collusion and graft. OF course, in this case there was NO MONITORING of what was going on.


But of course, the Republicans tell us haveing the Government involved monitoring businesses just makes everything less "efficient" so it costs more. Uh-huh, so how much did the lack of monitoring the activities of this office administering the oil and gas leases cost us?

Recommended!

[hunter]

7. How do the oil companies advertise for jobs like that?

Escorts needed. Generous benefits and a large cash only expense account. Very high commissions. We are looking for skiers, snowboarders, golfers, and connoisseurs of fine foods and wines... some knowledge of the petroleum industry desirable, but not necessary dependent upon other qualifications.