The Count Down - 325

Congressional investigations in Hanuary 2007 oncovered a legal blunder allowing oil companies to avoid billions of dollars in payments for oil and gas pumped from publicly owned waters, Johnnie M. Burton, the Director of the Interior Department's Minerals Management Service, told a congressional hearing that she first learned about the problem in January 2006.

Confronted by e-mail messages from subordinates sent in early 2004, Ms. Burton conceded that she probably had been told earlier, but "did not remember putting a great deal of though into the matter."

Investigators calculated that the government could have collected an additional $365 million between 2004 and 2007.