Ethical lapses? On federal land? Involving oil and gas companies? Shocking.
The department that collects royalties from oil and gas companies is plagued with ethical lapses, a report says.
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But it offered a sharp description of failures at the Minerals Management Service, the agency within the Interior Department responsible for collecting about $10 billion a year in royalties on oil and gas. Many of the issues, including the complaints by whistle-blowers, were initially reported last year by The New York Times.Prepared by the Interior Department’s inspector general, Earl E. Devaney, the report said that investigators found a “profound failure” in the agency’s technology for monitoring oil and gas payments.
It suggested that the agency was too cozy with oil companies and that internal critics had good reason to fear punishment.
...In one case, senior officials decided that it would impose a “hardship” on oil companies to demand that they calculate the back interest they owed after having been caught underpaying. The agency itself was years behind in billing the companies, because its computers could not perform the calculations.
When asked about this matter by investigators, the agency’s associate director, Lucy Querques Denett, responded, “How do you define hardship, just because they have a lot of money?”
No wonder oil and gas companies have enjoyed record profits in recent years....
