interior department corruption

• Our View Salazar Feeling the Heat? Fair Enough -- But Keep Him

It was hard to tell whether President Barack Obama, during his Oval Office speech last week, was praising Interior Secretary Ken Salazar or damning him with faint praise. The president credited the San Luis Valley native with an official cleanup of an Interior Department agency whose corruption contributed to the Deepwater Horizon disaster Obama was addressing Tuesday evening. Yet it was the president, not Secretary Salazar, announcing a new director of Interior's Minerals Management Service.

• The Santa Fe New Mexican
• June 21, 2010

• First 100 Days / Briefly

Overseer chosen for stimulus WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama plans to announce today a former Secret Service agent who helped expose lobbyists' corruption at the Interior Department as his pick to oversee the $787 billion economic stimulus plan.

• The Commercial Appeal (2007-Current)
• February 23, 2009

• Obama to Name Agent Who Helped Expose Abramoff As Head of Stimulus Oversight

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama plans to announce today a former Secret Service agent who helped expose lobbyists' corruption at the Interior Department as his pick to oversee the $787 billion economic stimulus plan. Obama is set to name Earl Devaney as chairman of the new Recovery Act Transparency and Accountability Board, an administration official said Sunday. Vice President Joe Biden also will be given a role coordinating oversight of stimulus spending.

• Charleston Gazette
• February 24, 2009

• Salazar Expected to Reform Interior

CHICAGO -- President-elect Barack Obama officially picked Colorado Democratic Sen. Ken Salazar as his appointee for secretary of the interior Wednesday, a move intended to bring a more centrist - - and ethical -- approach to administering the nation's federal lands and shaping its energy policies. Obama's nomination of Salazar comes in the wake of turmoil surrounding the current Interior Department, which has been accused of corruption, malfeasance and rendering decisions based on politics rather than science.

• Deseret News (Salt Lake City)
• December 18, 2008

• Interior Reviews Find Sex, Drug Scandals Rampant

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said Wednesday he will be announcing a review of widespread corruption in the department, offering reporters a preview of investigations into scandals involving "sex, drugs and inappropriate gifts" among political and career employees in the department. Mr. Salazar said he will travel to the Minerals Management Service office in Lakewood, Colo., to announce the review and what steps are being taken to prevent any further problems. He said the office is one of the "worst examples of corruption, abuse and of government putting special interests before the public interest.

• The Washington Times
• January 29, 2009

• Interior: ; More Corruption

Maybe the current U.S. Interior Department should be called the Inferior Department. It's polluted with corruption. President Bush picked coal company lobbyist Steven Griles to be deputy secretary of the huge agency. Disgustingly, Griles' lobbying firm continued paying him, forking over $568,000 while he supposedly was an "impartial" government regulator. Much of his federal work consisted of helping coal owners blast off West Virginia mountaintops.

• Charleston Gazette
• September 16, 2008

• Obama to Name Investigator to Oversee Stimulus

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama plans to announce today a former Secret Service agent who helped expose lobbyists' corruption at the Interior Department as his pick to oversee the $787 billion economic stimulus plan. Obama is set to name Earl Devaney as chairman of the new Recovery Act Transparency and Accountability Board, an administration official said Sunday. Vice President Joe Biden also will be given a role coordinating oversight of stimulus spending.

• Telegraph - Herald (Dubuque)
• March 10, 2009

• Our View On Mineral-Service Front, More Needs to Be Done

Environmentalist reaction to President Barack Obama's offshore- drilling decree was still heated when the Deepwater Horizon rig blew up, killing 11 crew members and starting the oil spill now acknowledged as the worst in our nation's history. The disaster, sprung from Bush-administration lapses, has Obama frantically seeking ways to bring it under control -- and sensibly holding off on drilling permits in the Arctic Ocean. But Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, who less than two months ago was waxing enthusiastic about the president's oil plan -- as were New Mexico's Sens. Jeff Bingaman and Tom Udall -- should have faced up to a reality with which he was highly familiar: The Interior Department agency that issues offshore drilling leases and collects royalties from the government was ridd...

• The Santa Fe New Mexican
• June 01, 2010

• Senate Clerk Questioned in Investigation Into Finances

WASHINGTON - A Senate clerk who helped maintain Sen. Ted Stevens' personal financial records was recently called before a federal grand jury in a public corruption investigation that has been joined by the IRS and the Interior Department. Barbara Flanders, who serves as a financial clerk for Mr. Stevens on the Commerce Committee, has testified and provided documents regarding the senator's bills, according to an attorney in the case who spoke on condition of anonymity because grand jury matters are secret by law.

• Augusta Chronicle, The
• August 02, 2007

• Oil leak outrage: the federal government has been intimately involved with the situation in the Gulf, even before the leak began, but now Obama claims we need vast new regulations.

...Department of Justice. The same day President Obama named for... for relaxed safety standards and "corruption" in the Interior Department's Minerals and Managem...

• The New American
• July 19, 2010