Category Archive: Uncategorized

1. Career EPA Official Spends Most of his Workday Watching Porn

   May 9, 2014 1:41 pm Comments Off on Career EPA Official Spends Most of his Workday Watching Porn

   The inspector general has found that a high ranking EPA official spends most of his workday looking at pornographic websites. It caught the employee red handed watching porn on his government-issued computer while on the clock for the EPA. Upon subsequent interviews the employee admitted to watching between two and six hours of porn per workday. This has been going on since 2010.

   But, the employee is still receiving his $120,000 salary, continues to have access to EPA computers, and has recently received performance bonuses, according to testimony at yesterday’s Oversight Committee hearing on the EPA. “Employees have rights,” said EPA Deputy Administrator Bop Perciasepein response to inquiries by the Committee as to why the agency hasn’t fired the employee yet.

   The IG’s investigation determined that the employee visited 600 different porn sites in just four days, spent four consecutive hours on a site called ‘sadism is beautiful,’ and had 7,000 porn files on his computer. “How much pornography would it take for an EPA employee to lose their job?” asked Committee Chairman Darrel Issa.

   Wasting taxpayer dollars watching porn is just the latest example of malfeasance at the EPA. Recent investigations have uncovered employees receiving unauthorized bonuses, committing fraud, and using agency credit cards for personal expenses. These abuses are in addition to top official John Beale’s defrauding taxpayers of $1 million by skipping work pretending to be a CIA agent and former administrator Lisa Jackson, among others, conducting business on secret email accounts.

2. New Poll Shows Majority of Americans Prefer Coal and Natural Gas Development

   May 7, 2014 1:24 pm Comments Off on New Poll Shows Majority of Americans Prefer Coal and Natural Gas Development

   Today the Environmental Policy Alliance released the results of a new poll on Americans’ attitudes toward energy and environmental issues. It finds substantial public support for coal and natural gas development as well as opposition to the EPA’s push to limit coal and natural gas production.

   Conducted by ORC International (the same polling firm used by CNN), the poll finds more than two-thirds of respondents believe that using America’s vast coal and natural gas resources is “important for national energy security,” compared to just 15 percent who disagree. Further, nearly half of all those surveyed oppose the EPA’s proposed carbon emission regulations on new power plants, with only 31 percent supporting the rules.

   The poll also finds that a plurality of respondents oppose state proposals to ban hydraulic fracturing, which are currently being pushed by radical environmentalist groups such as the Sierra Club, NRDC, Greenpeace, and Food & Water Watch as part of their goal to eliminate traditional energy sources.

   These results demonstrate that the EPA is out of touch with the American people, who understand the value of coal and natural gas to the U.S. economy and their own livelihoods and standards of living. They also show that the public prefers responsible energy development to burdensome EPA regulations and overreach.

3. Top Scientific Body Calls out EPA for Shoddy Science

   May 6, 2014 2:23 pm Comments Off on Top Scientific Body Calls out EPA for Shoddy Science

   The National Academies, a primarily government funded 6,300 member organization of the country’s top scientists, published a report this week denouncing the EPA for its use of bad science to justify its conclusions. The National Research Council (NRC), one of four organizations that makes up the National Academies (the other three being the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine), found a litany of deficiencies across multiple offices that undermines EPA’s claims of scientific integrity.

   According to the report, EPA science suffers from:

   • Lack of transparency – “The lack of transparency and the inconsistencies raise questions about the quality of the approaches used.”
   • Lack of consistency – “Inconsistencies were found in the methods used to identify studies for consideration.”
   • Insufficient documentation – “EPA’s evaluation provided insufficient documentation of the analyses that led to the conclusions.”
   • Failure to justify conclusions – “EPA’s conclusions are not well supported… A higher standard of evaluation is required.”
   • Improper use of scientific method – “No clear description of a strategy or criteria for assessing the studies used in the evaluation… Methods that provide a more systematic approach and greater transparency are necessary.”

   Despite vocal EPA proclamations to the contrary – notably chief Gina McCarthy’s recent comment that science is the EPA’s “North Star” – the quality of the EPA’s science has long been considered questionable and agenda driven. EPA consistently ignores cost/benefit analysis, bullies scientists, and perverts the peer review process to further its agenda.

   “A better astrological term for the EPA’s science would be a black hole,” said U.S. Sen. David Vitter (R-La.). “The EPA keeps much of their science completely secret, and what science they do submit for independent analysis is again described by the National Academy as inconsistent, insufficient and lacking transparency.”

4. EPA Gives Out Half a Million Dollars in Unauthorized Bonuses

   May 5, 2014 4:03 pm Comments Off on EPA Gives Out Half a Million Dollars in Unauthorized Bonuses

   The EPA paid 11 employees $481,819 in unauthorized bonuses between 2006 and 2013 according to an inspector general report released Friday. The taxpayer-funded bonuses were supposedly for retention purposes but were not reviewed and reauthorized annually, as federal regulations and EPA policies require.

   One EPA employee, says the IG, received $77,204 in unauthorized pay over five years, despite only being approved for a one-year retention bonus. Another employee received $105,000 over four years, even though the bonus should have ended in 2009 when he was promoted. Confusion, lack of internal controls, and failure by managers and employees were cited by the IG as the reasons for this blunder.

   This is simply the latest of many examples of lax management and administrative misconduct at the EPA. Top official John Beale’s defrauding taxpayers of $1 million by skipping work pretending to be a CIA agent, the help he received from colleagues improperly filling out his expenses, top officials – including former chief Lisa Jackson – conducting business on secret emails, and employee abuse of agency credit cards for personal expenses are just some of the other examples of such EPA malfeasance.

5. Cartoon Friday

   May 2, 2014 2:34 pm Comments Off on Cartoon Friday

6. EPA Promoted Employee Who Helped Commit Fraud

   May 1, 2014 6:48 pm Comments Off on EPA Promoted Employee Who Helped Commit Fraud

   Explanations as to how EPA senior official John Beale was able to skip work for two years by falsely claiming he was a CIA agent, bilking taxpayers out of $1 million in the process, are starting to come to light. (Beale is currently in jail.) It turns out, according to a recent inspector general (IG) report that one EPA employee in particular, Beth Craig, abetted Beale by committing $184,000 worth of travel voucher fraud and attendance fraud for him. (Craig has since been promoted within the EPA.)

   According to the report, “From 2005 to 2007, Craig failed to exercise due diligence and permitted the authorization and approval of $65,721.87 in excessive, improper, or fraudulent travel vouchers for Beale.” Craig’s excuse: “Beale was held to a different standard because he was a senior leader.” She “routinely instructed” her subordinates “to put Beale in for eighty (80) hours of work for each pay period unless instructed otherwise,” costing taxpayers $118,471.45. When they questioned her about this practice, “Craig stated that Beale worked for EPA, but from a different location.”

   The IG reported the testimony of one of Craig’s administrative assistants:

   [Redacted] stated Beale would often stay at hotels that exceeded the authorized lodging amount and he also always had a rental car during his trips. She raised concerns regarding Beale’s expensive travel costs to Craig, but Craig told her that the expenses were authorized. [Redacted] stated Craig would ask her if Beale could get some of the expenses like hotel and air fare cheaper and [redacted] would say “yes,” but Craig would still allow the expenses to be processed and approved. [Redacted] stated that many of Beale’s vouchers exceeded $20,000 for a single trip.

   And what’s Craig’s reward for this gross negligence and deception? A promotion. In 2010, she was promoted from Deputy Assistant Administrator to Director of the Climate Protection Partnerships, Office of Air and Radiation. Clearly the EPA’s personnel policies, illustrated by Beale and now Craig, are far more lax than its regulatory ones.

7. EPA Shrugs as Big Green Carves Up Protected Birds

   April 28, 2014 2:01 pm Comments Off on EPA Shrugs as Big Green Carves Up Protected Birds

   Business is booming for the federal government’s environmental enforcers. In a self-congratulatory report released last week, the Environmental and Natural Resources Division of the Department of Justice was “happy to report” securing $8.3 billion in fines, penalties, and damages from environmental violators last year.

   Here’s how it works: special agents with various government agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), investigate potential violations of federal environmental laws. These agencies work with DOJ to secure charges, then DOJ prosecutes the alleged violators. Agencies like EPA are both a partner and a client of the Justice Department.

   But who, exactly, are these violators? In the case of Obama’s green police, violators tend to be those who don’t comport with the president’s green energy agenda. Meanwhile, renewable energy developers can usually count on getting off scot free.

   In its annual report, the DOJ celebrates how its army of lawyers “defended challenges to permits and rights-of-way in more than 25 cases involving solar and wind projects.” These “victories,” as DOJ explains, “enabled substantial development of renewable energy resources across the country.”  What DOJ failed to mention in its report is that Big Wind slaughters hundreds of thousands of birds each year in violation of federal law, including the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and Bald and Gold Eagle Protection Act. Yet the feds have prosecuted only a single wind energy company for killing protected bird species, and none before November 2013.

   The Obama administration also protects solar companies who run afoul of federal bird laws. The Ivanpah solar facility in California is among the largest solar installations in the world. In its report, DOJ takes credit for fending off litigation against the facility, exalting, “Our successes in fiscal year 2013 included favorable rulings on summary judgment in cases involving the Ivanpah Solar Project.”

   While Obama’s DOJ was defending Ivanpah in court, the solar plant was busy scorching birds. As The Wall Street Journal reported, the owners of the project reported finding dozens of dead birds before the plant even began operations in December. While regulators expected some bird deaths after the plant went on-line, they were surprised to find so many dead birds during construction and testing.

   As the feds largely ignores Big Green violators, they strictly enforce federal bird protection laws when it comes to oil and gas companies. In 2011, for instance, DOJ charged Continental Resources and six other oil companies in North Dakota for killing 28 migratory birds. Continental was charged after a single common birddied in one of its oil pits.

   Indeed, Obama’s green energy cops seem more interested in rewarding allies and punishing adversaries than providing equal justice under the law.

    

8. Billboard Takes EPA to Task

   April 23, 2014 8:02 pm Comments Off on Billboard Takes EPA to Task

   EPA Facts has put up a mobile billboard showcasing how Gina McCarthy’s EPA will hike Americans’ electricity bills. Starting today it will circle EPA headquarters in an effort to highlight the impact the agency’s regulations will have on ordinary Americans. Together with our recent video, “3 things you need to know about the EPA,” the billboard marks the start of our new ad campaign targeting the EPA.

   The billboard reads, “Your Electricity Bill May Soon Skyrocket…” with EPA’s advice on how to deal with it: “Suck it up.” The ad goes on to read, “Obama’s EPA, led by McCarthy, is moving full steam ahead with oppressive energy regulations to make higher costs a reality.”

   We have detailed the barrage of new EPA rules and the projected toll they will take on Americans’ wallets. For example, the EPA’s mercury and other power plant emissions (MACT) standards are expected to cost approximately $9.6 billion per year by the EPA’s own calculation and shut down nearly 20 percent of U.S. coal generating capacity. And, its Carbon Pollution Standards that limit carbon emissions for new power plants are widely projected to prevent the construction of any new coal-fired power plants and could raise household electric bills by up to $1,104 annually.

   Our new mobile billboard hopes to bring greater attention to the negative effects of these regulations and highlight the EPA’s power and overreach as a whole.

9. EPA Celebrates Earth Day by Polluting

   April 22, 2014 4:20 pm Comments Off on EPA Celebrates Earth Day by Polluting

   EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy is flying around the country in recognition of Earth Week asking Americans “to act on climate change through simple actions to reduce carbon pollution in their daily lives.” She should look in the mirror. Her and her entourage’s five day, five city tour will log around 2,600 miles and emit approximately 3 tons of carbon pollution, which will “far exceed,” in the words of Jeff Ruch, head of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), “any concrete climate action [achieved] from their travels.”

   McCarthy appeared last night in New York on the Daily Show and then will travel to Boston today before rounding out the week with stops in Cleveland, Atlanta, and Memphis. Ironically, the tour aims to teach people how to “commute without polluting.” But McCarthy and her colleagues will travel between cities by plane rather than by other, more environmentally friendly forms of travel such as train or bus. (The train from New York to Boston, for example, only takes 3.5 hours.)

   Her allies in the environmental movement are calling out her hypocrisy. “Frenetically jetting around the country appears to undercut EPA’s message to ordinary Americans that they should conserve, consume less and reduce transportation pollution,” said Jeff Ruch in a statement. “Hasn’t EPA heard of Skype?”

   This travel pollution is nothing out of the ordinary for McCarthy, who emits a lot of pollution in her day-to-day life as well. She travels home to Boston from Washington D.C. almost every weekend to see her family – mostly by plane. This travel alone emits around 8.5 tons of carbon dioxide per year – almost the same amount that the average American emits per year from all sources. But clearly McCarthy holds herself to a different (lower) environmental standard than the rest of us.

10. New Video about EPA Outrages

    April 16, 2014 5:09 pm Comments Off on New Video about EPA Outrages

    EPA Facts launched a new video today about the power and ineptitude of the EPA. It highlights the top three things that should outrage you about the EPA:

    1. The EPA is hell-bent on raising the cost of electricity for your family: Its coal regulations, by its own estimates, could raise the cost of household electricity by more than $1,000 a year, while eliminating more than 600,000 jobs.
    2. The EPA is a bureaucratic monster that can’t keep track of its employees: Last year, the world discovered a top EPA employee John Beale pretended to be a CIA spy in order to skip work, bilking taxpayers out of almost $1 million in the process.
    3. The EPA is constantly getting in bed with agenda-driven environmental activists: It has used environmentalist talking points and encouraged environmentalists to “sue and settle” so that it can pass regulations without much input from the public, with taxpayers paying the court costs.