Interior Riddled

From the Santa Fe New Mexican we hear the not-so-terribly-shocking news that Interior Department officials and, (lest we forget),  oil and gas company executives, have lost their moral compass - if they had one to begin with.   

...(S)everal Denver-based officials in Interior's Minerals Management Service may have illegally benefited by acting as paid consultants to some of the oil and gas companies. At issue is whether the officials steered oil-trading contracts to favorite companies. ...

..."The allegation that any senior official who is responsible for collecting royalties from companies that drill on public lands is also taking money from those companies as a consultant is beyond a conflict of interest, if true, it is a crime," ... (said Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass) a senior member of the House Resources Committee.

"The Interior Department is riddled with people who got their jobs because they were close to the oil industry and could be expected to tilt every decision accordingly," he said. "Royalties owed to the government from production on public lands have become the currency of cozy cooperation between industry and its special friends in the Interior Department." ...

Some people apparently need to be reminded that reliance on special friends to tilt every decision is not really how government oversight is supposed to work.

Weak and easily manipulated government agencies are a direct result of the Norquestian edict to drown the public sector in the bathtub.  How can good government result from repeating how all government is bad?      

Comments

[Inky Ink, Inc.]

I am shocked, SHOCKED... etc etc