End Of a Sexy, Druggy and Expensive Era at the Interior Department

Oil shale.

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A year after allegations surfaced about a culture that had bureaucrats literally climbing into bed with oil and gas industry representatives, the Obama Administration is shuttering the Minerals Management Service Office that appeared to be offering favorable treatment in exchange for drug-fueled parties and some sexual favors.

More than a dozen government agents, including the program's director Gregory Smith, took trips, golf excursions, meals and other gifts from friends they were supposed to regulate at the oil companies. They drank booze, smoked pot and snorted coke with them. Some went home together at the end of the party.

The big deal, beyond the sordid details, is the billions of dollars the government agents were supposed to be collecting as royalties from these companies. Those royalties -- for exploiting natural resources on public lands -- are the second biggest source of revenue, after our tax payments, to the federal government. Employees allegedly steered contracts to their friends, let them re-bid contracts and otherwise paid off the favors they accepted.

But even with the closure of that office, which was criticized by the oil and gas industry, the dirty dealings of Interior Department officials in the Bush Administration has not stopped. As the Los Angeles Times reports, former Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton, who was among the least-environmentally friendly bureaucrats to ever sit in that position, is being investigated by the Justice Department for allegedly steering lucrative (billions of dollars, potentially) oil shale drilling contracts to a subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell, which now employs her.

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