"Sexual relationships with prohibited sources cannot, by definition, be arms-length."

So wrote the Inspector General of the Department of Interior today in an eye-popping report decrying "a culture of substance abuse and promiscuity" in the Bush Administration program charged with collecting royalties from big oil. The language quoted above came at the end of a description of the misdeeds of a program called "Royalty in Kind" or RIK.

We also discovered a culture of substance abuse and promiscuity in the RIK program both within the program, including a supervisor, Greg Smith, who engaged in illegal drug use and had sexual relations with subordinates, and in consort with industry. Internally, several   staff admitted to illegal drug use as well as illicit sexual encounters.  Alcohol abuse appears to have been a problem when RIK staff socialized with industry.

For example, two RIK staff accepted lodging from industry after industry events because they were too intoxicated to drive home or to their hotel.  These same RIK marketers also engaged in brief sexual relationships with industry contacts.

The investigation into more than a dozen employees of a unit called the Minerals Management Service was leading the websites of the New York Times and the Washington Post this afternoon. Neither newspaper missed the irony that the scandal is breaking as Congress prepares to vote on whether to open our coasts to oil and gas drilling, yet another potential huge giveaway to big oil pushed by an Administration that has been plagued for eight years by ethical scandals involving big oil.

I'm sure we'll hear more about this as the story develops, but this latest scandal should stop the push for drilling in its tracks. The reality is that oil is a limited resource and it will eventually run out.

We need Congress to adopt legislation to improve energy efficiency as well as invest in renewables and new energy technology. To do otherwise, would be to award the malfeasance documented today by the Inspector General report.