A real swampy deal

Some deals seem too good to pass up. In the spring of 2002, President Bush and his brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, unveiled a plan to prevent oil and gas exploration in a vast Everglades wildlife refuge. For $120 million, they announced, the Interior Department would acquire 400,000 acres of mineral rights held by a private company. Environmentalists, not usually big fans of the president, cheered. "This agreement," said Interior Secretary Gale Norton, "is a win for all sides."

The reality, federal investigators now say, is quite different. In a searing report obtained by U.S. News, the Interior Department's top investigator, Inspector General Earl Devaney, assailed the actions of senior Interior officials and Collier Resources Co., a prominent family-owned concern in Naples, Fla., that stood to profit from the deal. Interior officials ignored legal requirements and the strong objections of career employees, the report said, provided "incomplete" information to Congress on the deal, and agreed to pay a bloated price for the oil and gas rights controlled by Collier.