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Young wants watchdog group’s records Project on Government Oversight questioned for payments to government officials; POGO says it won’t betray whistleblowers H. Josef Hebert Associated Press Writer
A government watchdog group and Rep. Don Young are engaged in a bitter dispute over whether the House Resources Committee that he chairs should have access to the group’s telephone records.
Young sent a subpoena Feb. 28 to the Project on Government Oversight, also known as POGO, demanding the records. That includes the executive director’s home telephone records.
The organization’s lawyer, Stanley Brand, accused the Alaska Republican of trying to retaliate against the group for its campaign to prevent oil companies from shortchanging the government in royalty payments.
Brand said the group won’t surrender the records.
It’s not yet clear how Young will proceed, although the panel could vote to seek a contempt of Congress resolution.
Committee questions payments Young’s committee has been looking into the circumstances surrounding POGO’s decision to give $350,000 each to two government officials for their work in trying to expose problems with the way federal royalties are calculated by oil companies.
The payments also are being investigation by the Interior Department’s inspector general and the Justice Department.
The money was part of $1.2 million POGO was awarded as its share in a settlement of a royalty payment lawsuit filed in Texas against some major oil companies. In all, oil companies so far have paid nearly $300 million in connection with the litigation.
Young and several other Republican members of the House Resources Committee have questioned whether the two officials — Robert Berman, a former Interior Department employee, and Robert Speir of the Energy Department — acted properly in accepting the payments. Young has questioned whether it was a payoff for information.
POGO says it will protect whistleblowers But Brand said the subpoenas sent to POGO and its executive director, Danielle Brian, seeking more documents and the telephone logs seem to go well beyond the scope of the investigation and could risk exposing the identity of government whistleblowers who have dealt with the group on a variety of issues.
“We’re not going to betray these whistleblowers,” Brian said.
Young acknowledged that the committee’s investigation has moved beyond the specific payments made by POGO to the two officials, focusing as well on the organization’s early involvement in the Texas lawsuit.
That lawsuit was initiated by two former industry executives and was sealed by the courts. Young said he wants to know how POGO “discovered a secret federal lawsuit” that had been placed under seal.
The subpoena asks among other things for all telephone logs, phone invoices, call sheets, message records and voicemail recordings from Feb. 1, 1996, to June 30, 1997, from POGO’s offices as well as Brian’s home telephone records.
Founded in 1981, POGO is a private advocacy group that has been involved in ferreting out government misconduct, mismanagement, waste and corruption, often relying on government whistleblowers.
In 1993, the group raised the ire of the Energy Department when it obtained and made public an inspector general’s report on waste in the $13 billion Superconducting Super Collider project. A short time later Congress killed the project.
In 1995, the group came under attack from the Air Force after it accused the government of burning hazardous wastes in a secret facility, known as Area 51, in the Nevada desert.
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