Senate Report: EPA Official Convicted of Bilking Government Out of Nearly a Million Dollars Was Critical Player in Crafting EPA's "Playbook" on Regulations

Remember this guy? He skipped out of work constantly, and, at one point, collected a steady paycheck despite not showing up for work for a year and a half.

Between 2000 and 2012, Beale skipped work for at least 616 days. But his fraud wasn’t discovered until last year when it was found out that he was still getting paid for a year and a half but hadn’t shown up for work in that whole time. Under McCarthy, Beale missed at least 18 consecutive months of work, costing taxpayers more than $239,000.

He covered his absences by claiming he was working for top men in the CIA.

Who?

Top. Men.

But despite his chronic absenteeism, he did manage to do Big Things when he troubled himself to show up at work.

A report by Senate Republicans contends that the Environmental Protection Agency’s regulatory “playbook” was written by known agency fraudster John Beale, who put into place major air quality regulations that set the stage for “the exponential growth of the agency’s power over the American economy.”

...

“This report will reveal that within the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), some officials making critically important policy decisions were not remotely qualified, anything but neutral, and in at least one case — EPA decision making was delegated to a now convicted felon and con artist, John Beale,” wrote Republicans on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

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“Together, Brenner and Beale implemented a plan, which this report refers to as ‘EPA’s Playbook,’” the senators continued. “The Playbook includes several tools first employed in the 1997 process, including sue-and-settle arrangements with a friendly outside group, manipulation of science, incomplete cost-benefit analysis reviews, heavy-handed management of interagency review processes, and capitalizing on information asymmetry, reinforced by resistance to transparency. Ultimately, the guiding principal behind the Playbook is the Machiavellian principal that the ends will justify the means.”

By the way, Beale got his job through a friend.

It's nice and friendly to have nice and friendly friends working nicely in the government.

posted by Ace at 04:41 PM

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