Investigative Reports

The OIG investigated allegations that a senior official from the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) encouraged natural resource specialists to overlook regulations so they could process Applications for Permit to Drill more quickly, and to protect any staff members who overlooked the regulations Our investigation did not substantiate the allegations and found no evidence to indicate the senior official encouraged staff to overlook the regulations as alleged. We found the senior official did meet with a group of natural resource specialists and encouraged them to streamline processes, but he did not direct staff to overlook regulations.

The OIG investigated allegations that Great Western Drilling Corporation (GWD) misreported mineral royalty data to the Office of Natural Resources Revenue (ONRR) and underpaid Federal mineral royalties.We substantiated the allegations and found that for more than 6 years, the GWD violated Federal regulations and ONRR rules when they deducted their costs incurred transporting and processing natural gas and associated natural gas liquids into marketable condition from its royalty obligations to the ONRR. Because of these violations, the GWD underpaid Federal royalties to the ONRR.The United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Colorado entered into a civil settlement agreement with the GWD for $600,000 to resolve this case.

The OIG investigated allegations that a former Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) manager influenced the award of a $21 million environmental consulting contract to a firm that employed him after he left the USBR. The allegations further stated that a USBR supervisory contract specialist had a conflict of interest with managing the contract process because of her romantic relationship with the USBR manager.We found no evidence that the manager personally or substantially participated in the contract or that he influenced the award while he was employed by the USBR. We also investigated whether the manager violated post-Government employment restrictions with his employment at the firm, whether he used his position to gain employment, or whether he shared sensitive information with the firm. We found no evidence that the manager violated any restrictions, that he used his position to gain employment, or that he shared sensitive information with the firm. We also found no evidence that the supervisory contract specialist had a conflict of interest with managing the contracting staff, or that she should have recused herself from the contract process. The contract was deemed invalid and canceled because the award exceeded the contracting officer’s warrant authority. That decision was unrelated to this investigation.

We investigated allegations that a BIE official, when he was the principal of a BIE boarding school, had attempted to increase the school’s Federal funding by:• Allowing or directing the enrollment of students in the school’s gifted and talented (GT) program without properly assessing them• Submitting inaccurate student attendance recordsWe found that enrollment in the school’s GT program went up dramatically while the official was principal and that this increased the school’s Federal funding, but we did not find evidence that the official had directed school staff to identify GT students specifically to augment the school’s funding. We also learned that the school employees who oversaw the GT program after the BIE official left did not consistently comply with regulations governing GT programs at BIE schools that receive Federal funds.In addition, we found that most of the school’s students were absent as many as 6 days before the end of the school year when traveling from the school to their homes, but when the official was principal he directed school employees to mark them present in the attendance records. We did not find that this practice directly affected school funding, but it did reduce the students’ available instructional time.We provided this report to the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs for any action deemed appropriate.

An Amtrak Trainmaster was terminated from his position on August 14, 2018, and an Amtrak executive resigned from his position in lieu of termination on August 17, 2018. The Chicago-based employees violated company policy by accepting gifts from the owner of a firm doing business with Amtrak and by intentionally providing false or misleading information to the Amtrak Office of Inspector General.

The VA Office of Inspector General (OIG) Administrative Investigations Division investigated an allegation that a Supervisory Industrial Engineer misused VA time and resources to start a privately-owned business and solicited subordinate staff to join this business. The OIG found that the Engineer, who worked within the Veterans Health Administration, Office of Strategic Integration, Veterans Engineering Resource Center (VERC), used a VA-assigned email account to communicate with subordinate staff, criticize the recent VERC restructuring, and propose they, as a team, use their experience to create a company that offered those services to outside organizations. The Engineer then created a company in the midst of discussions of potential layoffs within the VERC. The Engineer assumed the president position, and two other VERC employees became the director and treasurer. The OIG found they misused VA time and resources to conduct non-VA business during and after their official duty hours. The OIG also found that the company, at one point, consisted of up to 43 VA employees. Most of those employees have since left VA as their term appointments ended or were scheduled to end without extension. Further, the OIG found that the Engineer misused a VA-assigned email on several occasions to manage multiple personally-owned rental properties.

The OIG investigated allegations that a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) official intimidated and verbally abused a subordinate employee and that the official twice directed the employee to provide false information—once about an FWS event and once about an FWS investigation. The employee also alleged that the official took three retaliatory personnel actions against him after the official learned that the employee complained to the OIG about the abuse. We found that the official knew the employee had filed a complaint against him and subsequently took two personnel actions—a written counseling and a lowered performance evaluation—against the employee within 2 months after the employee submitted the OIG complaint. The official also directed an internal investigation into the employee’s conduct within the same time period; adjudication of that investigation was still pending at the time of this report, and no personnel action had been taken against the employee as a result. The official denied that he took these actions as retaliation for the employee filing a complaint against him and stated that he lowered the employee’s performance evaluation because the employee mishandled Equal Employment Opportunity complaints within the employee’s office.We found insufficient evidence that the official’s behavior created an abusive work environment for his staff, or that he directed the employee to provide false information.

The OIG investigated allegations that a former Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) official had targeted, bullied, and physically threatened U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) employees while at the DOI and that the official spoke in an unprofessional or threatening manner to senior DOI staff. As part of our investigation, we reviewed historical complaints against the official, and attempted to determine what his superiors knew about the history of complaints concerning his behavior and how they responded to those complaints.We identified examples of the official behaving unprofessionally and demonstrating questionable leadership when communicating with other employees. We ended our investigation after the official resigned.During our investigation, we found that a senior DOI official spoke with the BIA official regarding his behavior before our investigation, but the senior DOI official did not document any corrective action.

The OIG investigated allegations that a former Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) official may have shown favoritism when awarding Government contracts to a particular company. The complainant stated that the former official, who left BSEE to work for the company, may have participated in awarding a blanket purchase agreement (BPA) to the company before leaving BSEE and that he later influenced subsequent awards made under the BPA.After interviewing current and former BSEE employees who were either involved in awarding the initial BPA or the subsequent awards to the company, we did not find evidence that the former official had any influence or involvement in these actions during or after his employment at BSEE. During our investigation, we did find that the former official had communicated with his former coworkers at BSEE after he left, but we did not find that these communications violated Federal ethics rules.

The OIG investigated allegations that a retired Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) employee represented his current employer in matters in which he participated personally and substantially while he was employed at the USBR, violating post-employment conflict-of-interest laws.We confirmed that the retired employee represented his current employer in four matters which were substantially the same as those he engaged in while employed with the USBR. We found that he represented his current employer on a biological assessment on which he had been the primary decision maker while with the USBR, and that he was involved in the transfer of levee titles, which he discussed with his current employer while he was employed by the USBR. The retired employee also communicated back to the USBR about litigation surrounding water accounting methods—an issue he was involved with while with the USBR. Finally, he participated in litigation matters and meetings regarding a USBR dam, first as a USBR employee and then again after he retired.The retired employee declined to be interviewed, but an attorney for his new employer provided us with a written rebuttal to the four allegations.We referred this case to the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of New Mexico, which declined to prosecute.

The OIG investigated allegations that Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) Director Tony Dearman improperly influenced the findings of a fiscal monitoring review at a BIE-funded boarding school that took place in February 2018 because of his personal associations with the school.We found that Dearman’s presence at the school during the fiscal monitoring review was unusual, but that the monitoring team did not change its findings because of Dearman. We found that Dearman, who works at the BIE headquarters in Washington, DC, had previously served as the school’s principal and his family had associations with the school and still lived near the school. Dearman traveled in February 2018 to visit his family and attended the monitoring team’s exit interview with school officials.Of the 13 BIE employees involved with the review, 9 believed that Dearman’s presence negatively impacted the review, stating that his presence was either improper, inappropriate, a conflict of interest, or an appearance of a conflict of interest. Four team members said Dearman’s presence did not affect them or the team and did not recall him questioning or disagreeing with the team’s findings. All 13 team members told us the team did not changes its findings because of Dearman.Dearman said he attended the exit interview because he wanted to observe the progress of financial monitoring practices he had implemented at the BIE. He denied arguing with the team or questioning its findings and said he spoke up at the exit interview only to ensure the team gave the school accurate information. While we found that no other BIE director had attended these types of review at this or any other BIE school, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs John Tahsuda said he saw no issue with Dearman’s participation.We provided a copy of our report to the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs.

The OIG investigated an allegation that a senior official with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) committed perjury while testifying in an official capacity at a Federal trial in 2017. In a motion to dismiss, the defense quoted a 2008 letter signed by the official that, according to the defense, proved the official’s testimony was untruthful.We confirmed that some of the official’s testimony contradicted the letter, but we found no evidence that the official knowingly provided false information during the testimony. While the official did sign the 2008 letter quoted in the defense’s motion to dismiss, she did not write the letter, nor did she review or discuss it before providing her testimony in 2017.

The OIG investigated allegations that an oil and gas company irregularly reported oil sold in the Vernal, UT, area to avoid paying royalties. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) also suspected that a BLM employee’s signature may have been forged on a document related to one of the company’s oil sales. Our joint investigation with the BLM’s Special Investigations Group did not substantiate either allegation. We found that the BLM had known about a measurement problem with an oil tank owned by the company since 2010 but took no action to resolve the discrepancy until 2016. The company that purchased oil from the tank also knew of the problem and used an alternative measurement method, so no royalty loss occurred. Finally, we found a BLM employee’s signature was not forged; instead, the employee’s name was written on a document to indicate the employee was present as a witness to a sale.

The OIG investigated an allegation that a National Park Service (NPS) biologist had coerced at least two interns into having a sexual relationship, and that the biologist misused his position to lead interns to believe he could influence their chances of gaining employment at the NPS.We found no evidence that the biologist manipulated any NPS interns, or that he misused his position. We determined that the biologist had a personal relationship with one former intern, but the intern was not an NPS employee at the time and the relationship did not violate any NPS policies. The biologist and former intern ended their relationship and the former intern is now an NPS employee. We found no evidence, however, that the biologist influenced the former intern’s selection for Federal employment.

The OIG investigated allegations that an official at a tribally controlled college bribed members of the college board of trustees, submitted false mileage claims for work-related travel, retaliated against employees who disagreed with his policies, and failed to report the theft of college funds by a former employee.We did not substantiate the allegations of bribery, false claims, or retaliation. We also found the official ensured the theft was properly reported to law enforcement and that the stolen funds had been repaid in full.The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of South Dakota declined to prosecute the former employee for the theft.