The director of the Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service, Randall Lufti, has announced that personnel actions have been taken against employees included in a recent investigation into MMS’s royalty in kind program.
Following the conclusion of an agency inspector general investigation finding that MMS employees accepted gifts, some illicit, from the oil and gas industry in return for government favors, Interior secretary Dirk Kempthorne called for a swift response including the implementation of a random drug testing program.
According to Lufti, disciplinary actions range from a letter of warning and reprimand up to and including permanent reassignment from the RIK program, suspension without pay, demotion to a lower pay grade, and termination.
A new director for the RIK program has been named and the organizational structure modified so the head of the RIK program reports directly to the deputy associate director in Denver, according to the department.
