Oil rig inspectors took company gifts / let company fill out inspection forms

Oil rig inspectors took company gifts, watchdog group finds
By the CNN Wire Staff
May 25, 2010 2:03 p.m. EDT

The situation in the Gulf keeps getting worse, and so far, there's no end in sight. Anderson Cooper reports live tonight from the region as BP makes another attempt to stop the leak. Watch "AC360°" tonight at 10 ET on CNN for the latest on stopping the leak.

Washington (CNN) -- Federal inspectors overseeing oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico accepted meals and tickets to sporting events from companies they monitored, the Interior Department's inspector general concluded in a report released Wednesday.

In one case, an inspector in the Minerals Management Service office in Lake Charles, Louisiana, conducted inspections of four offshore platforms while negotiating a job with the company, the report states. Others let oil and gas company workers fill out their inspection forms in pencil, with the inspectors writing over those entries in ink before turning them in.

Some in the same office accepted tickets to the 2005 Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl, a college football bowl game. One inspector told an office clerk, "Everyone has gotten some sort of gift before at some point" from companies they regulated, according to the report.

Investigators from the Inspector General's Office, the Interior Department's independent watchdog agency, took their findings to federal prosecutors in Louisiana, the report states. But the U.S. attorney's office in Lake Charles declined to bring charges, according to the report.

"Through numerous interviews, we found a culture where the acceptance of gifts from oil and gas companies were widespread throughout that office," the report states. However, that culture waned after a supervisor in the agency's New Orleans, Louisiana, regional office was fired for taking a gift from a regulated company in 2007, the report found.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/05/25/oil.spill.interior/index.html?hpt=Sbin