MMS District Manager's explanation: "We’re all oil industry. Our inspectors do this all the time.”

[charlesg]

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2010/05/interior-department-inspector-general-issues-report-detailing-sleaze-at-minerals-management-service.html

Acting Inspector General Mary Kendall wrote to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar that of “greatest concern” to her “is the environment in which these inspectors operate -particularly the ease with which they move between industry and government. While not included in our report, we discovered that the individuals involved in the fraternizing and gift exchange -- both government and industry -- have often known one another since childhood.”... Federal regulations and agency ethics rules prohibit employees from soliciting or accepting gifts, including meals, costing more than $20, from a prohibited source.

Inspectors in the Lake Charles District accepted hunting and fishing trips from the Island Operating Company (IOC), an oil and gas production company, as well as tickets to sporting events such as the 2005 Peach Bowl, lunches and other gifts from representatives of oil and gas companies. MMS employees accepted invitations from oil and gas industry representatives to skeet-shooting contests, golf tournaments, crawfish boils, and Christmas parties. One offshore operating company provided a former MMS inspector -- who now works for the IOC -- with air transportation on a company plane to a college football game in Atlanta to watch the Louisiana State University play the University of Miami...

“Two employees at the Lake Charles office also admitted to using illegal drugs during their employment at MMS,” Acting IG Kendall wrote. “We found that many of the inspectors had e-mails that contained inappropriate humor and pornography on their government computers. Finally, we determined that between June and July 2008, one MMS inspector conducted four inspections of IOC platforms while in the process of negotiating and later accepting employment with that company.”

By way of explanation, MMS Lake Charles District Manager Larry Williamson told the Acting Inspector General, “obviously, we’re all oil industry. We’re all from the same part of the country. Almost all of our inspectors have worked for oil companies out on these same platforms. They grew up in the same towns. Some of these people, they’ve been friends with all their life. They’ve been with these people since they were kids. They’ve hunted together. They fish together. They skeet shoot together ... They do this all the time.”