There's a lot of news this week, with Hurricane Ike threatening the Houston area and non-stop Sarah Palin coverage, but this is not be missed.

Several reports given to Congress Wednesday documented an incredible tale of bureaucrats gone wild that's been going on within a Department of Interior agency that collects royalties on oil and gas production.

The New York Times had a pretty powerful story on it. Here's an excerpt:

The report says that eight officials in the royalty program accepted gifts from energy companies whose value exceeded limits set by ethics rules — including golf, ski and paintball outings; meals and drinks; and tickets to a Toby Keith concert, a Houston Texans football game and a Colorado Rockies baseball game.

The investigation also concluded that several of the officials “frequently consumed alcohol at industry functions, had used cocaine and marijuana, and had sexual relationships with oil and gas company representatives.”

And some more: 

The report also detailed cozy relationships between energy companies and other officials in the royalty-in-kind program office. Some 19 officials — a third of the staff — took gifts from oil and gas executives, some with “prodigious frequency,” it said.

On one occasion in 2002, the report said, two of the officials who marketed taxpayers’ oil got so drunk at a daytime golfing event sponsored by Shell that they could not drive to their hotels and were put up in Shell-provided lodging. Two female employees “engaged in brief sexual relationships with industry contacts,” the reports’ cover memo said, adding that “sexual relationships with prohibited sources cannot, by definition, be arms’ length.”

It's quite an astonishing report. One part especially stood out to me. This line from the New York Times story: 

One of the reports says that the officials viewed themselves as exempt from those limits, indulging themselves in the expense-account-fueled world of oil and gas executives.

Made me wonder, is this how oil company executives behave?

We've got our fair share of them here. Can anyone provide us with some insight?