Drilling into Interior Department Corruption

“Drill, baby, drill!”

This was supposed to be the cry of the plaintive Republican convention delegate, urging Congress to beam itself ahead ten years in time, in an effort to make petroleum mining of our shores and Artic wildlife preserves somehow happen miraculously in the present day, lowering the price of gasoline overnight, damn the environmental impact.

Today, however, it seems moans of this refrain actually came from the bedrooms of employees in the Interior Department, engaging in affairs with oil and gas company representatives, while snorting coke and taking bribes to heighten the excitement.  Folks at the Minerals Management Service, according to the Interior Department’s inspector general, worked for most of the Bush Administration in a “culture of ethical failure.”  The former head of this organization stands accused of having expended more effort setting up a consulting contract for a former aide than in collecting the billions owed the government for royalties by oil and gas companies.

The inspector general has uncovered a seedy drama so soap-opera-ready that the agency’s ‘royalty-in-kind’ program may be re-defined as a ‘taking-it-in-trade’ program.  The folks who are supposed to be collecting $4 billion in oil and gas assets in place of cash were apparently focused more on getting a steady supply of sex and drugs than receiving energy stores from the private sector.

In a response many may now echo, Florida Senator Bill Nelson suggested yesterday that the Senate could well hold up granting new offshore drilling rights while the damage from the inspector general’s report sinks in.  It will be interesting to see if the revelations slow the legislative rush to appear to be exploiting domestic oil and gas reserves by opening up more territory to exploration and drilling before the elections.