Your government at work:
Four government auditors who monitor leases for oil and gas on federal property say the Interior Department suppressed their efforts to recover millions of dollars from companies they said were cheating the government.
The accusations, many of them in four lawsuits that were unsealed last week by federal judges in Oklahoma, represent a rare rebellion by government investigators against their own agency.
The auditors contend that they were blocked by their bosses from pursuing more than $30 million in fraudulent underpayments of royalties for oil produced in publicly owned waters in the Gulf of Mexico.
“The agency has lost its sense of mission, which is to protect American taxpayers,” said Bobby L. Maxwell, who was formerly in charge of Gulf of Mexico auditing. “These are assets that belong to the American public, and they are supposed to be used for things like education, public infrastructure and roadways.”
The lawsuits have surfaced as Democrats and Republicans alike are questioning the Bush administration’s willingness to challenge the oil and gas industry.
Just another example of political appointees subverting or ignoring the law.
The irritating thing about all this is, quite simply, the arrogance and the lawlessness of this gang of crooks. I probably would tend to agree with many anti-tax arguments, and might be sensitive to many arguments that the way royalties are collected should be looked at and adjusted. But the way to do that is to make an open proposal, use the appropriate venues, and change the way royalties are collected.
Not to act as lawless brigands, making things up as you go.
Punchy
I’m pretty sure you mean “MY government at work” instead of “Your…”. You voted for these fucktards; we didn’t.
That said, I have to admit that NONE of this shit surprises me anymore. If tomorrow they discovered that Cheney has been dealing coke with the knowledge of the Secret Service, about 75% of us would just nod our head and mutter, “Go figure”…
Davebo
First, why conflate taxes with this issue? Royalties aren’t taxes. They are fees that companies agree to pay when they purchase oil leases from the government.
And the time to protest the royalties is at the time of the lease purchase. Protest by refusing to purchase the lease!
This isn’t an issue of “tax revolt” but an issue of fraud plain and simple so lets not muddy the rather clear waters here.
John Cole
I didn’t think I was confusing the two issues, having addressed both taxes and royalties, and I am pretty sure I was clear that this was fraudulent and inappropriate behavior.
Davebo
Conflating, not confusing John. Perhaps a bit picky, but still the two terms do not mean the same thing.
John Cole
I was neither conflating nor confusing the issues. This administration has a history of not dealing with tax-related issues and big business in a straightforward manner, this story points out an example of them doing pretty much the same thing with royalties.
I said I disagree with how they have (illegally) handled both cases.
HyperIon
NOW had a story last week that addressed this in the context of the wacko Department of the Interior. Evidently the first screwup was made during the Clinton administration: somehow the threshold value at which the royalities become due was removed. And then Interior “overlooked” this omission for years.
The department’s Inspector General was trying to call them to account. So someone was/is watching but does that change anything wrt actually stopping this BS?
I fear that in this complex world the bad guys may be able to steal faster than we can catch them.
Oh, and IIRC, the NOW story was talking Billions, not Millions.
HyperIon
this NYT article is substantive.
HyperIon
maybe this will work better
the link at the bottom leads to the NYT article that i tried to link to above.
Gary Farber
John, see the vastly bigger Interior Department scandal story I blogged last week. From the NY Times:
Thirty *million* is nothing.
HyperIon
third try is the charm?
The Other Steve
The Government exists to enrich the few.
Not the many
jg
I used to. Then I realized its all a trick. Its a ruse to get you to vote republican under the belief they are with you and want to ease your tax burden. But they don’t. They want to relieve the rich’s tax burden and they use us to do it.
A friend of mine was bitching about the amount of money that his parents have to spend for medication. I said this happens when one party takes money from big pharma. He agreed. But then he starts into the McDonalds case and how its cases like that that cause companies to raise prices and it screws us. I nearly passed out. We can’t win. We won’t win.
Tsulagi
You know, they could have just left it at that to be fully accurate. But of course it would only be a crime if it existed as such in Bushy’s mind. Everyone knows the likelihood of anything existing there.
Let’s see, it’s been six years so far of opening Xmas presents for the A-list campaign contributors in this Bush-Republican welfare state. Wonder how desperate they’re going to get for more as they see the day coming to a close. Or how hard they’ll go shopping for Bush 2.5 to keep the good times going.