This from Dashka Slater, writing in Sierra magazine: "Sex, Drugs, and Royalties - Congress entrusts expanded coastal drilling to the Interior Department's party animals.
"Was it the cocaine, the drunken parties, the ski getaways, or the sex? Whatever tipped the balance, last September Department of the Interior inspector general Earl E. Mevaney blasted the Minerals Management Service (MMS) for it 'culture of ethical failure.' Devaney found that employees of the agency's Royalty in Kind program, which collects billions of dollars in oil revenues, were in the habit of partying and occasionally sleeping with oil company representatives with whom they were doing business. Program staff also allowed energy companies to rewrite bids after being awarded leases, depriving the government of millions of dollars in revenue.
"Two weeks after Devaney's report came out, Congress offered its own gift to the oil industry by allowing the 27-year-old offshore-drilling moratorium to expire. The agency responsible for awarding new drilling leases? The MMS."
As Slater points out, however, "oil won't flow anytime soon." For a variety of reasons. Leases can't be sold until they are made part of a new five-year plan which is expected to at least two years. Drilling wouldn't start for another 5 - 10 years.
And, who knows, maybe the Dems can get the moratorium reinstated.
In other words, lots of things have to happen before anyone sees a drop of oil. And all of that takes time.
Slater sees another positive: "That might give MMS staff extra time to peruse their new pocket-size, laminated ethics guides, which won an award from the Office of Government Ethics--two days before the sex, drugs, and royalties scandal hit the papers."
I wonder if the MSM people involved in these shenanigans have been fired. Or maybe Bush gave them a special presidential medal for innovation in developing corporate relationships.
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