Political Quotes

“Mr. President, yesterday, the inspector general for the Department of the Interior came out with their report-- this investigative report--which followed another inspector general report of just a month ago. These two inspectors general reports talk about what is wrong in the Minerals Management Service. The most recent report is quite disturbing, and it comes on the heels of the one a month ago where they found a culture where the acceptance of gifts from oil and gas companies was widespread throughout the Office of the Lake Charles District Minerals Management Service in Louisiana. That information, of course, came on the heels of what we discovered years ago in reports about the incestuous, cozy relationship between the oil industry and the regulators who are supposed to see that the oil industry is doing its job, and doing it safely, and collecting all of the revenues from the royalties that the oil industry is supposed to pay, having drilled on Federal lands, which is the sea bottom of the Gulf of Mexico. This latest investigative report points out: Of greatest concern is the environment in which these inspectors operate--particularly the ease with which they move between the industry and the government. That is called the revolving door. That is somebody in the industry who comes into the government as a regulator, and then the revolving door turns, and they go back into the industry.…”