Over the past eight years, critics of our nation's energy policy (including us) have often complained that the Bush Administration is in bed with big oil. Turns out that's no longer just a figure of speech. Federal officials in charge of handling billions of dollars in oil royalties are in fact sleeping with employees of the energy companies they do business with.

And those illicit relationships are only the tip of the iceberg at the Minerals Management Service, according to several damning new reports released yesterday by the Interior Department's Inspector General. MMS employees in Denver and Washington also rigged contracts, engaged in illegal moonlighting, got drunk at industry functions, used cocaine and marijuana on the job and took gifts from oil company representatives.

As Interior IG Earl E. Devaney put it, the investigations reveal a "culture of substance abuse and promiscuity" by a small group of individuals "wholly lacking in acceptance of or adherence to government ethical standards."

As the reports detailed, MMS party central was located at the agency's Royalty-in-Kind office in Denver, which according to the AP, is responsible for marketing the oil and gas that energy companies barter to the government instead of making cash royalty payments for drilling on federal lands. Last year, the office collected about $4.3 billion worth of oil from those companies.

According to the inspector general, more than a third of the office's 55 employees received gifts and gratuities from oil and gas companies between 2002 and 2006. The companies paid for MMS employees to attend football and baseball games, PGA Tour events, Colorado ski trips, paintball outings and "treasure hunts," investigators found.

One of the reports cites an e-mail from a Shell Pipeline representative asking a woman in the royalties office to attend a tailgate party before a Houston Texans football game. "You're invited . . . have you and the girls meet at my place at 6am for bubble baths and final prep. Just kidding." Seriously, we couldn't make this stuff up.

Among those singled out in the reports is former program director Gregory Smith, who is accused him of having intimate relations with two subordinates, one of whom regularly sold him cocaine ... which he received in his office during work hours.

Smith now works for a private oil company in Denver. In response to the allegations, his lawyer said in a statement that Smith was a "very loyal and dedicated employee" who increased revenue under his watch.