A2 Politics & The Nation
In immigration uproar, an attorney with subtlety ..........................A3 Investigative panel recommends mild punishment for Rangel ....A4 National Digest ADL: Putting mosque near Ground Zero is ’not right’....................A3
The World
July becomes deadliest month of Afghan war for U.S. ...................A6 Pakistani government ramps up its flood relief efforts ..................A6 China renews claim to South China Sea...........................................A7 Leaders can’t quell Colombia’s feud with Venezuela ......................A8 Foreign Digest Gang threats shut U.S. Consulate in Juarez.....................................A6
Economy & Business
Obama takes auto bailout victory lap.............................................A10 Lithium batteries could face new restrictions ...............................A10 Business Digest Delta to pay settlement of $38 million ...........................................A10 Market Summary...............................................................................A11
Opinion
Editorial: The cost of delay in reducing federal debt. ..................A14 Colbert I. King: D.C.’s top election issue: the budget. ....................A15
on
postpolitics.com
Keeping tabs on Palin: Does her endorsement help or hurt?
Sarah Palin has thrown her support behind more than two dozen candidates, a mixture of “tea party” favorites and more established Republicans. Use our interactive graphic to explore her endorsements and how their recipients fare.
MIKE MEADOWS/ASSOCIATED PRESS
A U.S. Forest Service firefighter sets an intentional backfire to keep flames away from homes just west of Palmdale, Calif. A brush fire Thursday prompted evacuations and burned structures in rural Los Angeles County as crews scrambled to get ahead of the blaze.
Oil spill highlights conflict issue CORRECTIONS
A July 30 Style article about the increasing popularity of “the DMV” as a nickname for the Washington region misstat- ed the former call letters of WUSA, Channel 9. The televi- sion station was once WDVM, which stood for “the District, Virginia and Maryland.”
A Nightclubs listing in the July 30 Weekend section in- correctly listed Peter Robinson as the artist performing into next week at the Jefferson Ho- tel. Dennis Kaspar is filling in on Friday-Saturday and Tues- day-Wednesday. Robinson will return on Thursday.
A July 30 Weekend article on ideas for keeping children busy in the final weeks of summer in-
·· E-mail
corrections@washpost.com.
correctly said that the “Lego Ar- chitecture: Towering Ambition” exhibition at the National Building Museum is free with a suggested donation of $5. Ad- mission to the museum is free, but there is a $5 charge to see the exhibition. The exhibition is free for museum members and for children 3 and younger.
The Going Our Way column in the July 25 Travel section, on finding affordable destinations in the Caribbean for a group of college seniors, incorrectly said that hurricane season ends Nov. 1. Although peak hurri- cane activity traditionally oc- curs from mid-August through October, the season does not end until Nov. 30, according to the National Hurricane Center.
The Washington Post is committed to correcting errors that appear in the newspaper. Those interested in contacting the paper for that purpose can:
Call 202-334-6000, and ask to be connected to the desk involved —
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ombudsman@washpost.com.
investigation agency to adopt recusal policy
by Carol D. Leonnig David Dykes — the federal reg-
ulator now leading his agency’s investigation of the BP oil spill — has spent five years as a senior in- vestigator and office chief enforc- ing oil industry safety in the Gulf of Mexico. For much of that time, his brother was a top executive at an energy company with signifi- cant activities under Dykes’s pur- view.
But David Dykes did not for- mally recuse himself from mat- ters involving his brother’s com- pany. No rule required him to do so. Unlike many federal agencies that make employees distance themselves from matters involv- ing friends, relatives or former bosses, the nation’s chief oil reg- ulatory agency had no such policy. Now, in the wake of the BP dis-
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aster, Congress is pressing the agency formerly called the U.S. Minerals Management Service to clamp down on potential conflicts of interest. The case of David and Rodney Dykes highlights the chal- lenges of the task. The oil industry of the Gulf Coast is an insular world in which rig foremen and the federal inspectors charged with regulating them sometimes work side by side, or grew up in the same towns and even homes. Investigations into the BP spill
have focused on whether MMS regulators properly oversaw the Deepwater Horizon rig or merely accepted company assurances that the rig was safe. An inspector general investigation in May showed that MMS regulators in the gulf sometimes viewed them- selves more as industry friends and fishing buddies than police- men. In one office, they took free trips, sporting tickets and gifts from industry officials they were supposed to be monitoring, the investigation found.
New rules
Since June, the newly renamed Bureau of Ocean Energy Manage-
Congress presses
ment, Regulation and Enforce- ment [BOEM] has worked to de- velop new rules that would re- quire inspectors to recuse themselves from matters in which they have a family or other per- sonal conflict. Michael Bromwich, the new head of BOEM, said the agency needs a strong recusal pol- icy to assuage public concerns about closeness between regula- tors and industry.
“Since arriving a month ago to
lead reforms at BOEM, it is clear to me that there are concerns about conflicts of interest that we must address within the agency’s inspections and investigation programs. We’re looking very closely at these issues, including implementing new recusal pol- icies and taking appropriate ac- tion where necessary,” Bromwich said.
Bromwich said he and Interior
Secretary Ken Salazar have confi- dence in David Dykes’s work as co-chair of a team investigating the BP spill. Both David Dykes and his brother declined to comment. A spokesperson at the former MMS said David Dykes was never asked to review any matters involving Energy Partners, where Rodney Dykes was a senior vice president for production, or Stone Energy, a company under a tentative merg- er with the firm in 2006. David Dykes, a native of Ham- mond, La., has worked in the gulf oil business for nearly three dec- ades, as had Rodney Dykes. David Dykes drew the attention of MMS officials when, as a safety manag- er at Taylor Oil, he helped shape a model safety plan. In 1999, he joined MMS, and by 2005, he was a senior safety inspector in the Of- fice of Safety Management. He be- came office chief in February 2007. David Dykes was considered a “junkyard dog” as an investiga- tor, a former MMS manager said. His office oversaw accident in- vestigations, issued industry safe- ty alerts, imposed civil penalties and recommended regulation changes. Rodney Dykes stayed on the
corporate side, including a short stint with his brother at Maxus Energy. By 2001, he had joined Energy Partners Ltd., and he rose
to senior vice president in 2003. From 2006 to early 2008, En-
ergy Partners and a company un- der a tentative merger agreement with it in 2006 reported 30 in- cidents including fires, explo- sions, collisions and injuries on their rigs and facilities, according to MMS records. The MMS judged 25 to be very minor and not meet- ing the criteria for an investiga- tion, and did not probe further. District offices far below Dykes’s investigated the other five. In three cases where MMS in-
spectors found company viola- tions and failures, MMS fined the companies an average of $18,000 for each incident. BOEM officials said no one in
Dykes’s office or in lower district offices ever asked him to weigh in on cases involving his brother’s business. “David Dykes is among the
many diligent, dedicated, profes- sional public servants who works for BOEM and who is committed to ensuring the safety of offshore energy operation,” said Interior Department spokeswoman Ken- dra Barkoff. She said David Dykes orally disclosed in 1999 that his brother worked in the oil industry but did not do so in writing be- cause there was no policy cover- ing such conflicts.
‘Doubt in your mind’
Some argue that a formal policy is necessary because of the inevi- table perception that the office
The latest developments
Efforts to permanently plug BP’s busted well hit a snag because crews must take out debris found in the bottom of the relief well before they can pump mud into the damaged well, in a procedure known as a static kill. Removing the debris will take 24 to 36 hours and will probably push the static kill back to Tuesday.
There is “no pullback” in BP’s commitment to clean up the spill, said Bob Dudley, who heads BP’s oil spill recovery and will take over as CEO in October. Dudley was in Biloxi,Miss., to announce that former Federal Emergency Management Agency chief James Lee Witt will be supporting BP’s gulf restoration work.
The House has approved a bill to boost safety standards for offshore drilling and remove a $75 million cap on economic liability for oil spills. The House passed the bill 209 to 193. Partisan disagreements in the Senate will probably delay final passage of legislation responding to the gulf oil spill until at least September, when Congress returns from its summer recess.
policing oil rig safety could be conflicted about regulating the boss’s brother.
“If the one running the show at MMS runs the office in charge of [monitoring] his own brother, it’s hard to really come down on him,” said Gary Arsenault, a Louisiana lawyer who has sued on behalf of workers injured at Energy Part- ners facilities. “There’s always that doubt in your mind about how well his office can investi- gate.” Under the policy under consid-
eration, BOEM employees would be required to formally step away if there was a possible conflict be- tween job and family. A June 12 memo alerts BOEM inspectors in the Gulf to immediately notify bosses of potential conflicts. “You must get with your super- visor and recuse yourself of any inspections of facilities/fields/rigs that currently have family mem- bers or close friends working there,” the deputy regional super- visor for the gulf field operations wrote.
BOEM is now considering
strengthening that directive, re- quiring employees to document conflicts, make formal recusal re- quests and avoid performing any official duties relating to family members, friends or recent for- mer employers.
leonnigc@washpost.com
Research Editor Alice Crites contributed to this report.
S
KLMNO Fighting fire with fire
SATURDAY, JULY 31, 2010
Gore sex-assault inquiry closed; lack of evidence cited
by Carol D. Leonnig and Philip Rucker
Law enforcement authorities in Portland, Ore., have concluded
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that there is insufficient evidence to proceed with a criminal pros- ecution of former vice president Al Gore after a massage therapist accused him of sexually assault- ing her in a 2006 incident. The Multnomah County Dis-
trict Attorney’s Office reached its decision after reviewing a follow-
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up Portland police investigation into the woman’s allegations. The case was reopened in June after the massage therapist publicly asserted in a National Enquirer article that Gore tried to force her to have sex with him. Gore has acknowledged get- ting a massage from the woman when staying at a Portland hotel but denied that any assault took place. Police had not questioned Gore in an earlier inquiry.
The former vice president “un- equivocally and emphatically de- nied this accusation when he first learned of its existence three years ago,” Gore spokeswoman Kalee Kreider said. “He respects and appreciates the thorough and professional work of the Portland authorities and is pleased that this matter has now been resolved.”
leonnigc@washpost.com ruckerp@washpost.com
Nebraska Democrat says he won’t vote for Kagan
Sen. Ben Nelson (Neb.) said Fri-
day that he will vote against the Supreme Court nomination of Elena Kagan, the first Democrat to declare his opposition to her. Kagan will still probably coast to confirmation, based on a Washington Post accounting of the likely voting.
— Paul Kane
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