We reported last week that Interior Secretary Ken Salazar wants the Justice Department to reopen its investigations into the scandals at the Minerals Management Service. A quick update: According to several sources at the department, Salazar is specifically interested in Gregory Smith and Lucy Denett. They’re both former high-ranking Interior officials; Justice declined to prosecute either one. Smith is a former director of the controversial royalty-in-kind program at MMS. He took tens of thousands of dollars in consulting fees from a company that wanted to do business with oil and gas companies, and accepted gifts and trips from the industry.…
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Interior Secretary Ken Salazar is asking the Justice Department to review ethical scandals at the department and considering an overhaul of the Minerals Management Service’s royalty program. Salazar made the announcement after a meeting with MMS employees at the agency’s offices in Lakewood, Colo. The agency was the subject of scandal in September: A report from the department’s inspector general highlighted illegal drug use by employees and a cozy relationship with the energy companies MMS regulates. MMS is responsible for collecting royalties from oil and gas projects on federal lands. Justice decided not to prosecute two high-ranking employees cited in…
Ethics seemed in short supply at the Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service last year; we reported on revelations of illicit sex with oil company executives, major conflicts of interest, and concerns that the agency’s royalty program wasn’t getting the best value for taxpayers. To that end: President Obama’s new Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar, will visit the agency’s Colorado offices tomorrow and announce the first steps in his ethics reform plan. He’s holding a press conference after his meeting with MMS employees; we’ll have more details tomorrow afternoon. Salazar made a quick appearance at today’s White House briefing, and…
A busy week ahead here at Federal Times, and around Washington: The House votes on the stimulus package, new Cabinet secretaries get to work, and President Obama starts his first full week in office. First, though, we go a couple hundred miles north to New York, where Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar says he wants to reopen the Statue of Liberty’s crown to visitors. The whole statue, you’ll remember, was closed for security reasons after 9/11; the base was reopened in 2004, but the crown has remained closed. Not for security reasons, though; the narrow, 168-step staircase leading to…
President Barack Obama’s Cabinet now has eight official members. The Senate voted by voice vote just before 4 p.m. today to confirm the following seven nominees: Steven Chu for Energy, Arne Duncan for Education, Janet Napolitano for Homeland Security, Peter Orszag for director of the Office of Management and Budget, Ken Salazar for Interior, Eric Shinseki for Veterans Affairs and Tom Vilsak for Agriculture. His Cabinet already included Robert Gates, whom Obama asked to stay on as Defense secretary. But things aren’t moving so quickly for Sen. Hillary Clinton’s secretary of state nomination. After her smooth hearing before the Senate…
It hasn’t been a good few months for the Interior Department. Interior’s inspector general, Earl Devaney, just released his office’s latest report (pdf). It examines how former deputy assistant secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks Julie MacDonald politicized the Endangered Species Act: We determined that MacDonald’s management style was abrupt and abrasive, if not abusive, and that her conduct demoralized and frustrated her staff as well as her subordinate managers. … MacDonald’s zeal to advance her agenda has caused considerable harm to the integrity of the ESA program and to the morale and reputation of the [Fish and Wildlife…