Back in September, you may recall a series of reports based on an internal investigation of the Interior Department that, essentially, showed that gas and oil companies were getting away with skimping on royalty payments. Interior just wasn't auditing these companies enough to compel the royalties they owed for extracting natural resources from public property. Now, CBS News reports that not only were they not auditing enough, they didn't actually do the auditing they said they did. Interior misrepresented the number of audits they had been doing all along! If the report's correct, that's pretty bold stuff. It seems almost a certainty that Democrats will hold hearings on this issue in 2007.