[env-trinity] As Interior Turns, An eight year soap opera in which federal officials screwed the environment, the taxpayers, and each other. By Jonathan Thompson, High Country News, 12.22.08

[Byron Leydecker]

As Interior Turns
An eight-year soap opera in which federal officials screwed the environment,
the taxpayers, and each other.
>From the December 22, 2008 issue of High Country News by Jonathan Thompson

There's plenty in Washington for the new administration to clean up, but
perhaps the biggest messes can be found in one agency: the Department of
Interior. Over the last eight years - mostly between 2001 and 2005 - the
agency charged with managing millions of acres of public land has been
racked by scandal. During a veritable orgy of ethical lapses, federal
coffers were deprived of oil and gas royalties, fragile species denied
protection, and industry given yet more power to wreck public land in the
name of greed. The questionable behavior was department-wide, but three
major spheres of controversy stand out: The corruption around J. Steven
Griles; the "Minerals Management Service Gone Wild" scandals; and Julie
MacDonald's enthronement of ideology over biology. 

Some may dismiss the incidents as just a few bad apples spoiling the barrel.
But the patterns suggest otherwise - in every case, either ideology or money
or both were allowed to triumph over common sense. Former lobbyists and
industry executives held too many top posts, and links to property-rights
and pro-industry organizations were too strong. Interior Secretary Gale
Norton was heavily involved in ideologically hard-right causes before she
entered public service, and then went to work for the oil industry
afterward. Griles was a lobbyist, Rejane Burton the former vice president of
an oil and gas exploration company, and so on. In recent weeks, some of
these same officials have "burrowed" into - or been shuffled around -- the
agency, transformed from political appointees into career employees. That
will just make this mess harder to clean up.

Here are some of the stars and other players - in As Interior Turns.

Once upon a time, Jack Abramoff was a very powerful lobbyist. He could raise
money for himself (including millions of dollars in fees from his clients),
and for others (more than $100,000 for the Bush campaign). He urged his
clients - including various Western tribes -- to donate huge chunks of cash
to politicians and to political appointees' pet organizations. In exchange,
he provided enviable access to government officials. If this sounds corrupt,
it's because it was, and Abramoff finally got caught and was convicted of
defrauding Indian tribes and corrupting public officials. He brought plenty
of folks down with him, including J. Steven Griles, a top dog at Interior,
lobbyists and politicians. He never worked directly for the Bush
administration (though they seemed to be working for him, at times), but he
has become the primary symbol of the corruption by money of politics during
the last eight years.

J. Steven Griles was a leading man in As Interior Turns, holding the
number-two spot in the agency and ending up in bed with everyone from Jack
Abramoff to the coal and electric power industry, to (literally) Italia
Federici. He first worked for the feds in the 1980s under James Watt, at the
U.S. Office of Surface Mining. In 1995, he founded J. Steven Griles and
Associates, a lobbying group that eventually became part of National
Environmental Strategies, another lobbying group that worked for the  mining
and fossil fuel sectors. In 2001, he became Gale Norton's deputy. At the
time, he signed onto a special agreement that allowed him to continue being
paid (about $1 million) by his former lobbying firm, as long as he didn't
meet with former clients; he did anyway. He hung out with officials from the
National Mining Association, and pushed for looser mountaintop-removal
mining standards. He met with Edison Electric Institute folks, and tried to
ease federal clean air rules on power plants. All the fun came to an end
when Griles was caught in Abramoff's sticky web - he helped Abramoff
navigate Interior on behalf of his clients. Griles resigned in 2004, and two
years later pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice. Though Griles is gone,
his legacy remains: Mountaintop removal rules were recently eased up by the
Bush administration.

Italia Federici was never a part of the Department of Interior, but her
tentacles reached into the agency in more ways than one. Federici and Griles
began a relationship in 1998, which continued in some form or another after
Griles became Norton's lieutenant. Federici then served as a liaison between
Abramoff and Griles; in return, Abramoff funneled at least $500,000 from his
clients to Federici's charity, the Council of Republicans for Environmental
Advocacy, which Norton helped start in the late 1990s. Federici pleaded
guilty in 2007 to obstructing the investigation into Jack Abramoff.

Sue Ellen Wooldridge was Norton's deputy chief of staff and then counselor
before being appointed Interior solicitor in 2004. Then in 2005 she became
U.S. assistant attorney in charge of environment and natural resources. She
also secretly dated Griles while both were working for the feds (they later
got married). In 2005, Griles, Wooldridge and ConocoPhillips executive Don
Duncan bought a $1 million beach house together. Wooldridge later gave
ConocoPhillips extra time to pay millions of dollars in fines. She resigned
under the cloud of scandal in 2007.

Matthew McKeown was yet another private-property-rights ideologue who moved
into Interior in 2001, at the beginning of the Bush reign. As one of
Interior's top legal eagles, he played a large - if unseen - role in getting
the Bush agenda implemented on the ground. (He later moved to the Justice
Department along with Wooldridge.) He had a primary role in the Healthy
Forests Initiative, publicly bashed the Endangered Species Act, negotiated
settlements that gutted the Northwest forest plan, and negotiated an
agreement between Interior and the state of Utah making it easier for the
state to control roads that cross federal land. As Bush prepared to leave
office, McKeown was converted from a political appointee to a civil service
post, meaning he'll remain in Interior under Obama.

--Rejane "Johnnie" Burton was the director of the Minerals Management
Services, the agency responsible for collecting billions of dollars of
royalty payments from oil companies that operate on federal land. She
oversaw MMS during a time when staff members were cavorting with one another
and oil industry officials, and as energy companies skirted some $1 billion
in royalties that should have gone into federal coffers. She resigned in
2007.

Donald Howard, Jimmy Mayberry and Milton Dial were all MMS officials during
the Bush administration, and they all pleaded guilty. Howard accepted a
hunting trip from an oil industry contractor, and Mayberry and Dial violated
conflict-of-interest laws.

Greg Smith directed MMS's Royalty in Kind Program, which accepts oil and gas
from energy companies in lieu of royalties for drilling on public land. The
program was expanded in the late 1990s at industry's behest, after the
straight cash royalty program was tightened up to prevent chronic
under-collection from oil companies. The program is set up to have very
little oversight. (The Government Accountability Office characterized it as
operating under an "honors system.") Which was good for Smith, because he
apparently had other things on his mind. A federal investigation revealed
this year that during his tenure, Smith took drugs with and coerced
subordinates into having sex with him. On one occasion, he pestered an
employee for cocaine, settling finally for methamphetamines, which he
snorted off a toaster oven. Smith also accepted golf outings, drinks and
meals from employees of Shell, Chevron and Gary Williams Energy Corp.
Meanwhile, he was moonlighting as a salesman for Geomatrix, an environmental
services company that sometimes works for oil companies. From his MMS
office, he made sales pitches to various energy companies - some of which he
was supposed to be collecting royalties from - on behalf of Geomatrix,
according to federal investigators.

Smith wasn't the only one with dirty hands in the Royalty in Kind branch of
the Minerals Management Service. Federal investigators found that at least
1/3 of the staff were hanging out with and accepting gifts from oil industry
folks between 2002 and 2006. At least one RIK staffer had a one-night stand
with a Shell employee. During that same time, according to the GAO, the MMS
could not account for the cost or benefits of the RIK program. Apparently
staff was so busy taking ski trips and going to parties on the oil
industry's dime that they forgot to keep track of whether those same oil
companies were paying adequate royalties. In spite of these problems,
Interior has tried to expand the program.

By the time she resigned in 2007, Julie MacDonald had become one of the most
notorious of the many notorious Interior officials. MacDonald first came to
Interior in 2002 as an advisor. Then, in 2004, Norton promoted her to the
powerful post of deputy assistant secretary for fish, wildlife and parks. In
just a few years, she did more to tinker with her own scientists' findings,
and thereby derail protections on endangered species, than anyone in the
history of Interior. MacDonald's subordinates suffered under her - she
"bullied, insulted and harassed the professional staff," according to a
federal investigative report - and she did the same to wildlife. The arroyo
toad, white-tailed prairie dog, Preble's jumping mouse, Canada lynx,
southwestern willow flycatcher and other species lost protection or critical
habitat thanks to MacDonald. (The agency later reconsidered some of
MacDonald's decisions.) She was also in cahoots with the conservative
Pacific Legal Foundation and the California Farm Bureau, to whom she
disclosed confidential info while at Interior.

E-mails reveal that MacDonald was working closely with Steven Quarles, a
prominent lobbyist for forest, mining, agricultural and development
interests, and former Interior official. One message from Quarles to
MacDonald requested a meeting to "secure easy 'yeses' to outrageous
requests." Quarles continues to work with the Crowell and Moring lobbying
firm, with clients such as the Village at Wolf Creek, Plum Creek, Anglogold
and Rio Tinto.

A Government Accountability Office investigator testified to Congress that
other Interior officials should have been examined as part of the MacDonald
investigation, including Craig Manson, Brian Waidmann, Todd Willens and
Randal Bowman. Though the three were never actually accused of wrongdoing,
some did their part aboveboard to stick it to endangered species. Willens
was once senior staff advisor to Richard Pombo, the notorious California
congressman who attempted to gut the Endangered Species Act. While at
Interior, he pushed to remove the Florida manatee and other species from
endangered species protection. Willens left Interior in 2008 and - you don't
say!? - became a lobbyist.

In spite of the fact that the most salacious scandals happened on her watch,
former Interior Secretary Gale Norton has stayed above the fray. Bush
appointed Norton, a one-time libertarian, protegee of James Watt and member
of various right-wing think tanks, in 2001. During her years in Interior,
the BLM issued drilling permits at a record pace. Norton favored drilling in
the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, voided critical habitat on millions of
acres, increased the number of snowmobiles in Yellowstone, and so on and so
forth. She resigned in 2006, just as the Abramoff/Griles connections were
coming to light. Abramoff never directly rubbed off on her, but there are
many links: Federici, for example, tried to arrange a 2001 meeting between
Norton and Lovelin Poncho (Abramoff client and Coushatta tribal chairman).
Eventually, the two met at a Council of Republicans for Environmental
Advocacy fund-raising dinner that Abramoff helped coordinate. After leaving
Interior, Norton went to work for Shell, and Dirk Kempthorne took her place.
Most of the dirtiest scandals stopped after she left, but Interior has
continued its questionable approach to the environment, stripping protection
from endangered species, opening up 1.9 million acres to oil shale
development, pushing through last-minute rules that favor industry, trying
to lease thousands of acres for energy development -- even right next to
national parks -- and blocking a congressional attempt to stop uranium
mining next to the Grand Canyon.

  

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