ABC: "short of a crime anything goes at the Dept. of Interior"

[RedEarth]

'Anything Goes' at Interior Department

Government Watchdog Says Ethics Lacking at Department of Interior
By LIZ MARLANTES and TOM SHINE

WASHINGTON, Sept. 12, 2006 — - Earl Devaney, the inspector general of the Department of the Interior, will give a blunt assessment of the level of ethics there in testimony to be presented to a congressional subcommittee Wednesday.

"Simply stated, short of a crime, anything goes at the highest levels of the Department of the Interior," Devaney will tell the subcommittee, according to an advance copy of his prepared remarks obtained by ABC News.

Devaney was asked to investigate a controversy that's been brewing on Capitol Hill for months over what critics call a giant giveaway to the major oil companies.

The giveaway, according to the critics, stems from leases issued by the government to oil companies in the late 1990s that exempted them from paying royalties on deepwater drilling, regardless of how much profit they ultimately reaped from that exploration.

The issue has taken on heightened urgency in the wake of the recent discovery of huge new oil fields in the Gulf of Mexico. The federal government could lose more than a billion dollars in royalty payments from this new source alone. Over the long term, the leases could cost the government as much as $20 billion, according to a recent report by the Government Accountability Office.


http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/print?id=2427096

[originalpckelly]

1. Teapot Dome Part II?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teapot_Dome

[TechBear_Seattle]

2. SOP for the SOB

Anything and everything to enrich the very rich and impoverish everyone else.

[rodeodance]

3. a few months ago, Dems tried in Congress to get some royalites but

the amendments did not pass (blocked by Repugs of course)

[Jackpine Radical]

4. "Short of a crime?"

What makes him think they stop there? Interior is a revenue-generating mechanism for the Bushistas. Their main role is to make payoffs to industry that contitute the return on money invested in bribes.

I guess ABC can let an occasional story like this slip out to help maintain a pretense of doing news as long as they keep those Bushco infomercials like P2 911 coming.

[Jed Dilligan]

11. "Short of a crime" =

legal CYA. Everyone knows crimes ARE being committed, but they will be in deeper legal shit than the criminals if they report it.

[enough]

5. k&r

[The Backlash Cometh]

6. It's like that everywhere. In business, in city government where the

private sector has cross-over. And it's impossible to prosecute. People really do believe they're clever if they steal things fair and square.

[CrispyQ]

7. A sad but spot on statement:

"People really do believe they're clever if they steal things fair and square."

Holy shit.

[The Backlash Cometh]

8. They brag about it at the country club. How can you have respect

for community leaders, when you know this is a recreational sport to them?

[Oilwellian]

9. The late 1990's?

I smell another Clinton attack.

[Wilms]

10. K&R n/t