By Siobhan Hughes Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- The U.S. Interior Department on Friday said it had disciplined employees in the office that collects royalties from oil and gas companies after an internal investigation found a party atmosphere in which workers accepted gifts from and had sex with industry representatives.
U.S. Minerals Management Service Director Randall Luthi said that the discipline included suspension without pay, demotion and termination. He didn't identify the employees who were punished. MMS spokesman Nicholas Pardi said that privacy rules prevented further disclosures.
In September, the Interior Department's inspector general found that some employees at the Denver office of MMS "frequently consumed alcohol at industry functions, had used cocaine and marijuana, and had sexual relations with oil and gas company representatives." His report added that "sexual relationships with prohibited sources cannot, by definition, be arms-length."
Congressional Democrats had howled over the disclosures. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., proposed writing laws to deter future misconduct at MMS.
The investigative arm of Congress, the Government Accountability Office, is looking into whether the government is collecting all the royalties energy companies owe for oil produced on federal property. An earlier GAO audit had found that neither MMS or the Bureau of Land Management, which administers onshore-drilling leases, was meeting targets for inspecting leases and metering equipment used to measure oil and gas production.
-By Siobhan Hughes, Dow Jones Newswires; 202-862-6654; Siobhan.Hughes@dowjones.com
(Stephen Power of The Wall Street Journal contributed to this report.)
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
November 21, 2008 16:32 ET (21:32 GMT)

Publié le 21 novembre 2008 Copyright © 2008 Dowjones