Drill, baby, drill!

"Drill, baby, drill" is apparently the message from oil and gas industry representatives toward their contacts at the Minerals Management Service, according to a report that finds Federal bureaucrats engaged in "brief sexual relations with industry contacts." The report also finds a "culture of substance abuse and promiscuity."

The U.S. Interior Department Minerals Management Service (MMS) collects royalties from oil companies that drill and extract resources from federal land, including from off shore drilling rigs. The recently released report from the Interior Department Inspector General finds "a culture of ethical failure" at the MMS, where staffers "socialized with, and received a wide array of gifts and gratuities from, oil and gas companies."

"We discovered a culture of substance abuse and promiscuity in the RIK program -- both within the program, including a supervisor…who engaged in illegal drug use and has sexual relations with subordinates and in consort with industry."

MMS bureaucrats "also engaged in brief sexual relationships with industry contact. Sexual relationships with prohibited sources cannot, by definition, be arms-length," referring to ethical rules which state that social relationships must be arms length.

Thanks to Jack in St. Louis for the story and title idea. Read more at Wall Street Journal and Houston Chronicle. See also Sex, drugs and big oil.