Regulators fired, disciplined for taking gifts from oil firms
By Greg Gordon | McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON — Two employees of the Interior Department have been fired and eight others disciplined in a scandal over the acceptance of meals, junkets, gifts and, in some cases, illicit sex and drugs from the oil companies that they regulated, a knowledgeable person said Friday.
Randall Luthi, the director of the department's Minerals Management Service, announced Friday that he'd meted out discipline ranging from a letter of reprimand to dismissal, but gave no details. All those disciplined worked in the controversial Royalties-in-Kind program, in which the government forgoes royalties on federal leases and instead takes a percentage of the pumped oil and gas for resale.
The actions came in response to a scathing September report in which Department Inspector General Earl Devaney described ``a culture of substance abuse and promiscuity'' in the RIK program and said 19 of its employees had taken gifts from oil and gas industry sources.
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