The Empire 74

'Blowing the Whistle on Big Oil.
By Edmund L. Andres.
The New York Times.

Honolulu - During a 22-year career, Bobby L. Maxwell routinely won accolades and awards as one of the Interior Department's best auditors in the nation's oil patch, snaring promotions that eventually had him supervising a staff of 120 people.
He and his team scrutinized the books of major oil producers that collectively pumped billions of dollars worth of oil and gas every year from land and coastal waters owned by the public. Along the way, the auditors recovered hundreds of millions of dollars from companies that shortchanged the government on royalties.
"Mr. Maxwell's career has been characterized by exceptional performance and significant contributions," wrote Gale A. Norton, then the secretary of the interior, in a 2003 citation. Ms. Norton praised Mr. Maxwell's "perseverance and leadership" while cataloguing his "many outstanding achievements."
Less than two years later, the Interior Department eliminated his job in what it called a "reorganization." That came exactly one week after a federal judge in Denver unsealed a lawsuit in which Mr. Maxwell contended that a major oil company had spent years cheating on royalty payments.
"When I got this citation, they told me this would be very good for my career," said Mr. Maxwell, smiling during an interview here. "Next thing I knew, they fired me." Today, at 53, Mr. Maxwell lives on a $44,000 annual pension in a two-bedroom bungalow in the hills outside the Hawaiian capital.
But Mr. Maxwell has hardly disappeared. Instead, he is at the center of an escalating battle with both the oil industry and the Bush administration over how the federal government oversees about $60 billion worth of oil and gas produced every year on federal property. In the process, he has become one of the most nettlesome whistle-blowers Big Oil has ever encountered, a face-off that offers an inside look at how the industry and the government do business together.
Invoking a law that rewards private citizens who expose fraud against the government, Mr. Maxwell has filed a suit in federal court in Denver against the Kerr-McGee Corporation. The suit accuses the company, which was recently acquired by Anadarko Petroleum, of bilking the government out of royalty payments. It also contends that the Interior Department ignored audits indicating that Kerr-McGee was cheating. Three other federal auditors, who once worked for Mr. Maxwell and still work at the Interior Department, have since filed similar suits of their own against other energy companies.
Several of the nation's biggest oil producers, including Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Shell and ConocoPhillips, failed in an effort to block Mr. Maxwell's suit, arguing before an appellate judge that his case would "open the floodgates" to suits by other federal auditors. But the court rejected their pleas, and a trial is set to start on Jan. 16.
Mr. Maxwell's self-interest is as much in play in the suit as is the public interest. If he wins, Kerr-McGee could be forced to pay more than $50 million in unpaid royalties and penalties, Mr. Maxwell said. Mr. Maxwell and his lawyers could be entitled to keep as much as 30 percent of any funds the government recovers - enough to make him a wealthy man.
Anadarko says that the government's rules were followed and that it owes no money because the Interior Department never asked it to pay more. But it is now trying to negotiate a settlement before the trial begins.
"We believe the case is without merit," said John Christiansen, an Anadarko spokesman. "However, as is a fairly common practice, both sides have agreed to meet with a mediator prior to trial."
The actions of Mr. Maxwell and the other auditors have coincided with broader investigations by Congress and the Interior Department's own inspector general into whether the agency properly collects the money for oil and gas pumped from public land. Investigators say they have found evidence of myriad problems at the department: cronyism and cover-ups of management blunders; capitulation to oil companies in disputes about payments; plunging morale among auditors; and unreliable data-gathering that often makes it impossible to determine how much money companies actually owe.
In February, the Interior Department admitted that energy companies might escape more than $7 billion in royalty payments over the next five years because of errors in leases signed in the 1990s that officials are now scrambling to renegotiate. The errors were discovered in 2000, but were ignored for the next six years and have yet to be fixed.'

Lees verder: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/120306B.shtml