Despite an ongoing investigation into the Interior Department Office of Inspector General, an annual survey found a significant number of employees in the department believe that the watchdog does not work independently from the administration and even “softens” reports to its liking.
Sens. David Vitter (R-La.), Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) and John Cornyn (R-Texas) asked the Integrity Committee of the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency in a May 25 letter to investigate the Interior Department’s Acting Inspector General Mary Kendall, whom they say “failed to ensure an independent, impartial and complete investigation into the Administration’s offshore drilling moratorium and related activities.” That request was granted in July.
Kendall, the senators noted in their request, was reportedly involved in the so-called 30-Day Report, “which erroneously indicated that independent peer review experts endorsed the Administration’s six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling.” Then, Kendall conducted an oversight investigation of the report.
On Sept. 19, Kendall sent a memo to all employees in her office with results of their annual workplace survey.
“Over 80% of OIG employees completed the survey, and the results suggest that a significant number of employees (approximately 15%) believe OIG does not conduct its work in a manner that is ‘independent’ from the Interior Department,” Vitter, Sessions, and Cornyn wrote this week to Kevin Perkins, chairman of the Integrity Committee in the process of conducting its investigation. “As troubling, the survey results suggest that a significant number of employees (approximately 23%) do not believe communication within the OIG is ‘open and honest.’”
Comments from employees on the survey include: “I think there is widespread distrust and low morale in the organization right now. There are at least perceptions the acting IG and COS [Chief of Staff] did not do the right thing, ie [sic], improperly quashed investigations, and have not been forthright with Congress.”
“Another commenter expressed concern with ‘how much reports get softened to avoid “slamming” the Department in the interest of maintaining a good relationship’ and advised that if the Interior Department ‘did something horribly wrong, it isn’t our [OIG’s] job to soften the blow,’” the senators noted in the letter first obtained by PJM.
A copy of the survey results reviewed by PJM also had comments such as, “What is up with asking the Department if they are okay with OIG looking at programs and areas and not looking when DOI say they would prefer we don’t. That is clearly against the independence model. You have experts SME’s within and you don’t take the word of them but do the DOI. That is crap!”
“Wake up and quit trying to to [sic] ‘get approval’ from DOI…we have job to do,” said another. “…Get back to being independent and lets [sic] get ourselves some respect and demonstrate to the tax payers why we were hired.”
Kendall’s response to employees was that their frustrations were due in part to “extended pay freezes, reduced benefits, downsizing government, drastic budget cuts, and scrutiny from the House Natural Resources Committee.”
“These survey results seem to support the view that, at least within the OIG itself, there is a lack of full confidence in the integrity of their work under the current leadership,” the senators wrote to Perkins. “We believe this is important context for your ongoing investigation and reinforces why we believe it is important for your investigation to be thorough and concluded in a timely manner, as these matters need to be addressed and resolved without undue delay.”
The lawmakers encouraged the Integrity Committee to have investigators interview Interior Department employees and “assess other appropriate actions or recommendations that should be made in order to rehabilitate OIG employee confidence.”
“We do not believe these steps should delay the timely completion of the investigation,” they added.
In August, Vitter wrote in an exclusive PJM op-ed that Kendall had actually attended meetings in which Interior officials reviewed working drafts of the very same report she later was tasked with investigating — a clear conflict which Kendall never revealed.
“The biggest consequence in this case is that major energy exploration and new production in the Gulf of Mexico was basically turned off for more than six months,” Vitter wrote. “Many thousands of workers directly involved in that work were laid off. Many more in oilfield service and related support businesses lost their jobs and livelihoods or were forced to split from their families and seek work overseas. Eleven massive deepwater rigs left the Gulf of Mexico for redeployment in Brazil, Africa, even Australia. Other rigs that were headed to the Gulf turned away and shallow-water rigs were idled. The economic hit to my state of Louisiana was actually bigger than that of the recent recession.”
Believing that that an Inspector General (Interior dept., Justice dept., any dept.) in an Obama administration works “independently” in a non-biased, objective fashion is beyond the limits of my imagination.
Further, the idea that any extra-legislative agency of the Obama administration, from Lisa Jackson’s EPA to Jules Genachowski’s FCC and Timmy (“the tax cheat”) Geithner’s Treasury isn’t simply a knee jerk policy arm of the administration’s agenda is also beyond belief.
The current crowd in DC gives the word “incest” a whole new dimension.
tanstaafl, you said a mouthful, and it’s all true. And anyone who thinks that a lawless, renegade, revolutionary regime would tolerate the necessary independence and oversight, is smoking crack.
As is said, the fish stinks from the head up, and the head of this regime (and surrogates) is worse than Mafia Inc, and there are dead bodies to prove it!
It is hardly a question of a conservative blogger ripping apart a Dem regime. For heavens sake, who in their right (no pun intended)mind would want to witness the regime’s anti-American carnage, regardless of party affiliation. Indeed.
However, Obama’s America is a whole other animal – http://adinakutnicki.com/2012/10/27/obamas-america-entering-the-parallel-universe-of-radical-politics-gone-haywire-a-short-path-to-dictatorship-addendum-to-gunning-for-tea-party-activists-commentary-by-adina-kutnicki/
Be still, my patriotic heart.
The Interior IG is a departmental appointment not requiring Senate confirmation. While technically IGs are supposed to be hired on qualifications rather than political affiliation one may assume that in a Democrat administration an appointed IG would have fig leaf level qualifications and be very good “friends” with the Secretary and/or the President. Understand, of course, that all Democrat appointees are always qualified and all Republican appointees are nothing more than grasping hacks. The only IG if know of being driven from office over politics was the daughter or former CJ Rehnquist who early in GWB’s first term was driven out of the IG slot in DHSS by the media and Democrats. In any event, you can safely assume that in a Democrat administration, an IG’s first loyalty is not to the truth.
That said, there is nothing untoward about a draft of an IG report being shared with the agency being investigated. It is SOP to get Agency reaction to the IG’s findings and conclusions. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with the IG changing his/her findings or conclusions based on Agency input; the Agency has the SMEs. There is something wrong with an IG whitewashing a report for political reasons but we all know that Democrats are good people and good people don’t do bad things, so no Democrat IG would ever do a bad thing like whitewash a report for political reasons.
Please reread the following carefully. ‘In August, Vitter wrote in an exclusive PJM op-ed that Kendall had actually attended meetings in which Interior officials reviewed working drafts of the very same report she later was tasked with investigating — a clear conflict which Kendall never revealed.’
By attending those meetings she became part of that report process, even if she gave no input, nor asked any questions. What was the purpose of Kendall attending meetings where a proposed DOE report was being reviewed?
That should be DOI.
Shale boom turns North Dakota into No. 3 oil producer
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/08/us-oil-output-bakken-idUSBRE82714V20120308
March 12, 2012 Oil and Gasoline Prices By Seldon B. Graham, Jr.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/03/oil_and_gasoline_prices.html
Drill Our Way to Lower Oil Prices? Yes We Can! Posted 03/15/2012
http://news.investors.com/article/604557/201203151838/oil-prices-drop-quickly-on-talk-of-petroleum-reserve-release.htm
Gas Prices Explained
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40hNSJEKUgo&feature=player_embedded
“Watchdogs” are liberal entities and liberal entities put partisanship ahead of integrity.
Partisanship is integrity to the progressive mind. Levin is absolutely right in saying “liberalism is a mental disorder”. To be a progressive, all you have to become is the very thing you profess to despise.
“Over 80% of OIG employees completed the survey, and the results suggest that a significant number of employees (approximately 15%) believe OIG does not conduct its work in a manner that is ‘independent’ from the Interior Department….”
How independent can it be when the IG reports directly to the head of DOI, as do all the other IG’s at their respective agencies??!
Additionally, since there is risk to employees in filling out these “anonymous” satisfaction surveys, I would suspect the real number is likely to be higher than 15%. It’s normal that management receive numerical feedback by number of responses to survey items, often broken out by organizational unit, some of which can be fairly small. Supervisors usually have a pretty good idea which employees are most likely to be candid or critical, aided and abetted by water cooler stoolies within the group, and retaliatory pressure can be brought to bear on them in subtle or not so subtle ways.
It probably doesn’t sound like it would take much, but the people who comprise that 15% are actually brave souls.