By NBC News
The reports authored by the Department of Interior's Inspector General are not usually, ahem, romance-novel material. Consider the recent barn-burning report that found that an Interior Department agency "circumvented the procurement process by improperly issuing two 15-year cooperative agreements, one for the construction and operation of compression units and one for construction and operation of a crude helium enrichment unit."
So imagine our surprise when the Inspector General released reports today on Capitol Hill alleging that 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.
As the wires are reporting, 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.
As the AP reports, the investigations reveal a "culture of substance abuse and promiscuity" by a small group of individuals "wholly lacking in acceptance of or adherence to government ethical standards," wrote Inspector General Earl E. Devaney.
The reports are now posted on the Interior Department Inspector General's website.
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. The government received $4.3 billion in such Royalty-in-Kind payments last year. The oil is then resold to energy companies or put in the nation's emergency stockpile.
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. Devaney said the former head of the Denver Royalty-in-Kind office, Gregory W. Smith, used illegal drugs and had sex with subordinates. The report said Smith also steered government contracts to a consulting business that was employing him part-time.
Devaney has been incredibly aggressive as the department's IG. He famously told Congress in 2006: "Simply stated, short of a crime, anything goes at the highest levels of the Department of the Interior."
Now we know that crimes are not off the table, either. The IG's office referred four of the Denver cases to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution. One of the employees pleaded guilty, the Justice Department declined to prosecute two others and the IG is waiting to hear the resolution of the fourth case, Devaney wrote.
