US Minerals Management Service (MMS) Sex and drugs scandal

The alleged activities occurred between 2002 and 2006 and involved 19 former and current workers at the MMS's offices in Denver and Washington.

Earl Devaney, the department's inspector general recommended that those still on the job be fired.

The workers were involved in the "royalty-in-kind" programme that collects and sells oil and gas turned over by energy companies as royalties for drilling on federal lands. About $4 billion a year in royalty-in-kind oil and gas is collected and sold by the department.

The oil companies named in the report were Chevron, Shell, Hess and Gary Williams Energy.

Representative Nick Rahall, chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, said the activities of the MMS staff "are so outlandish that this whole IG report reads like a script from a television miniseries - and one that cannot air during family viewing time."

Rahall, a West Virginia Democrat, said it was no wonder the MMS was doing a poor job of overseeing the government's oil royalty programme.

"Clearly the employees had 'other' priorities in that office," he said