Sex, drugs and political hay
by Miki SaxonImage credit: sejlor CC license
Oh what fun. I do love a good scandal, preferable in business, because usually the players more interesting to me, but now and then a political one blows that tickles my fancy.
And it just happened.
Here’s the deal. The Interior Department spent two years and $5.3 million to discover that for four years “nearly a third of the Denver office staff — received gifts and gratuities from oil and gas companies, including Chevron Corp., Shell, Hess Corp. and Denver-based Gary-Williams Energy Corp.”
That’s the Minerals Management Service office—the folks who collect royalties from the oil companies, in case you didn’t know.
The investigation found a “culture of substance abuse and promiscuity” where “employees frequently consumed alcohol at industry functions, had used cocaine and marijuana, and had sexual relationships with oil and natural gas company representatives” who referred to some of the government workers as the “MMS Chicks.”
Whoo hoo, hot stuff. Oh, and don’t forget “the director of the royalty program had a consulting job on the side for a company that paid him $30,000 for marketing its services to various oil and gas companies.”
In a gross understatement, Inspector General Earl E. Devaney called it “a culture of ethical failure.” No kidding, makes you wonder what was taught in the ethics class all but one took.
But what really makes this hilariously ironic is the timing.
Because these are also the people who approve offshore drilling permits and some in “Congress are starting debates pressing to expand oil and gas development off America’s beaches while trying to stave off an election-year rush by Democrats to impose new taxes and royalties on the oil industry.”
So besides a juicy scandal we have a giant load of political…hay.
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