WASHINGTON—Interior Secretary Ken Salazar is calling for a top-to-bottom review of ethical misconduct and reforms at the Interior Department, raising the possibility that investigations closed by the Bush administration may be reopened.
Appearing at the White House, Salazar told reporters Wednesday the department over the last eight years “has been tarnished by ethical lapses and criminal behavior that has extended to the very highest levels of government.”
He said he wants his own review of what happened, what has been done to address it and what steps still need to be taken.
Salazar cited the 2007 criminal conviction of Steven Griles, former deputy Interior secretary, who pleaded guilty to lying to a Senate committee about influence peddling and his association with disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
The Interior Department is “now a department that the American people associate with Jack Abramoff,” said Salazar as well as one that has been “tarnished by a scandal involving sex, drugs and inappropriate gifts from oil companies.”
Last November, more than half a dozen workers at the Minerals Management Service office, which oversees the oil and gas royalty program, were disciplined—and several were fired—because of the scandal in which workers partied, engaged in sex and used drugs, and accepted gifts from oil and gas industry representatives.
“Some employees engaged in blatant and criminal conflicts of interest and self-dealing,” said Salazar. “It is one of the worst examples of corruption, abuse and of government putting special interests before the public interests.”
Salazar said he will visit the MMS office in Lakewood, Colo., on Thursday and talk with the people who work there. Recently in an address to Interior Department employees, Salazar said the department’s 67,000 employees had been “unfairly” tainted by actions of a few including political appointees.
“We will no longer tolerate those types of lapses at any level of government from political appointees or career employees,” Salazar said, promising a “long term-effort to enact comprehensive, top-to-bottom reforms.”
The Interior Department with a budget of $15.8 billion, is the landlord overseeing more than 500 million acres of federal land including the national parks. Its programs range from protecting endangered species to issuing oil and gas leases. Last year it collecting $23 billion in royalties from oil and gas taken from federal land and waters.
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