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'US oil rig inspectors take gifts from company'
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DPA | 26 May, 2010
Federal officials responsible for inspecting and licensing offshore oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico accepted lavish trips from offshore oil companies, according to an official federal report released Tuesday.
The report contributed to the growing image problem of a Minerals Management Service (MMS) that allowed oil companies like BP to forego environmental reports and safety inspections while keeping a cozy relationship with the industry.
The report, which covered violations up to 2008, also found violations of pornography on government computers and illegal drugs use.
It came as photo images from the Gulf of Mexico showed birds dying amid oil-covered mangroves and thick soupy crude oil washing more than 16 km inland into ecologically fragile marshes. The ruptured BP well off the coast of Louisiana has been pouring crude oil into the Gulf since April 20.
The report from the inspector general for the Department of the Interior found that MMS employees in the Lake Charles district office attended skeet-shooting events, hunting and fishing trips, golf tournaments, crawfish boils and Christmas parties sponsored by offshore oil companies.
"Of greatest concern to me is the environment in which these inspectors operate - particularly the ease with which they move between industry and government," wrote Mary Kendall, acting inspector general. "We found a culture where the acceptance of gifts from oil and gas companies (was) widespread throughout that office."
Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar called the activities described in the report "reprehensible" and "deeply disturbing". He said it was "further evidence of the cozy relationship between some elements of MMS and the oil and gas industry".
Shortly after the April 20 BP explosion, Salazar ordered a separation of the departments that grant oil leases and those that carry out safety inspections and enforce environmental rules.
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