Criminal Inquiries Look at U.S. Oil-Gas Unit/ NYT

[TexasLawyer]

Criminal Inquiries Look at U.S. Oil-Gas Unit

By EDMUND L. ANDREWS
Published: December 15, 2006

WASHINGTON, Dec. 14 — The Justice Department has begun two criminal investigations into the Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service, which is already the focus of several inquiries into its collection of royalties for oil and gas produced on federal property.

The new investigations are still in the early stages, said Congressional officials who were briefed this week by Earl E. Devaney, the Interior Department’s chief independent investigator. The investigations are an unexpected development in what has already become a broad examination of the Interior Department’s oversight of companies that pump more than $60 billion worth of oil and gas each year from publicly owned land and coastal waters.

One Justice inquiry involves Interior Department officials in Denver who manage the government’s fast-growing program to collect “royalties in kind,” which are royalties in the form of oil and gas rather than in financial payments, people briefed on the investigation said.

That investigation is being run by the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section, which examines suspected criminal violations by federal employees. The focus of the second investigation is unclear, but it is being conducted by the inspector general with help from the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/15/washington/15royalty.html

[EST]

1. Never fear, the shithead mob headed up by the idiot, cheney,

and speedy will decide that any further investigations would result in serious breaches of "security" and the whole thing will be dropped.