Former Interior Auditor Says He Was Told to Be Lax on Oil Fees

[kpete]

Former Interior Auditor Says He Was Told to Be Lax on Oil Fees
A former top auditor at the Interior Department accused senior officials on Wednesday of prohibiting him and other investigators from recovering hundreds of millions of dollars in underpayments from oil and gas companies that drill on federal land and in federal waters. Speaking before the House Natural Resources Committee, the former senior auditor said that the Interior’s Mineral Management Service is “the proverbial ostrich that has its head in the sand, that sees nothing, knows nothing, but says that no royalties are due.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/29/business/29royalty.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

[NewJeffCT]

1. Damn - these folks have made a living with scandal overload!

It's almost impossible to comprehend the sheer vastness of the corruption and incompetence that has been going on these last 6+ years. They have really made a living counting on the limited attention span of both Americans and the media.

[nealmhughes]

2. DOI is rotten to the core.

Right now they are trying to "free up" a buttload of land in the Zion-Mojave Wilderness that is public land to enable St. George UT to become a new "Sinfree Las Vegas."

Here is the original copy that I wrote for PDA when the bills were in their first forms. I have a feeling that BLM/DOI corruption is like a proverbial bad nickle, it just won't go away. . .

http://screechingrats.wordpress.com/2006/12/05/action-alert-stop-development-of-zion-mojave-wilderness/

Water diversion, "rights of way", unpaid and unpursued royalties, what more does one need to recognize a rotten apple, since the flies and smell alert the world?