[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 97 (Monday, July 24, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Page S7490]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    PROJECTS ON GOVERNMENT OVERSIGHT

  Mr. MURKOWSKI. Madam President, I am also going to take the 
opportunity to address an issue that some time ago my Committee on 
Energy and Natural Resources asked the General Accounting Office to 
provide a detailee to conduct a preliminary inquiry into payments made 
by the Project On Government Oversight to two Federal officials. The 
Project On Government Oversight is known as ``POGO.'' This report was 
received by the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. It was 
prepared by Paul Thompson, the detailee from the General Accounting 
Office. It is dated July 2000.
  There is no question in my mind after reviewing this that the 
inspector general of the Department of the Interior should be required 
to review this report and respond to our Committee. I think it is 
fitting that the Attorney General, Janet Reno, address and resolve some 
of the questions that are raised by the inquiry.
  Let me share some of them. I read as follows from the report of the 
POGO on July 2000.

                              Conclusions

       It appears that POGO paid the two Federal officials in 
     connection with their activities to influence the Department 
     toward taking actions and adopting policies that, among other 
     things, (a) directly and indirectly assisted POGO in a 
     project involving matters in which these two individuals were 
     substantially involved as Federal employees and that led to 
     POGO's filing of a lawsuit through which it and the two 
     officials received substantial sums of money and stand to 
     receive potentially millions of dollars more, and (b) 
     benefited the professional and business interests of POGO's 
     chairman and a client of his law firm. The circumstances 
     associated with the payments raised the possibility that the 
     Department of the Interior's development of the policy 
     underlying the new oil royalty regulations may have been 
     improperly influenced by expectations or understandings of 
     the officials that they could personally benefit from using 
     their positions as Federal employees to assist POGO and two 
     of its principals. The officials were substantially involved 
     in key stages of the Department's policy development process 
     in ways that served the interests of the POGO's chairman and 
     its executive director. Whether the payments and 
     circumstances under which they were made could serve to erode 
     confidence in the Department's administration of the royalty 
     management program is a well grounded concern.
  Madam President, the entire transcript of the committee report on 
POGO, prepared for the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, is 
available from the committee's website at http://www.energy.senate.gov.

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