Stanley Meiburg, the EPA’s acting deputy administrator, was in the hot seat for
a House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform hearing titled, “EPA
Mismanagement.”
Meiburg had to answer some uncomfortable questions, like why are EPA employees
getting paid to look at porn on taxpayer time?
“There is no federal agency (that) is perceived to lack common sense more, and
doing more to endanger the American economy, than the EPA,” said Grothman, a
first-term Republican from Campbellsport.
“Now this isn’t exactly the type of hearing that I thought I was signing up for
when I ran for this job. I thought I was going to talk to the EPA about what
your people are doing when they come up with these ridiculous ozone rules,” he
said. “Now we know what at least some of them are doing. Is it really true that
some of these people were spending two-to-six hours a day watching porn?”
It is.
Last year, a report by the EPA’s inspector general unveiled an unidentified
agency employee was watching as much as six hours of porn a day on his office
computer and had downloaded some 7,000 pornographic files. As of late March, the
employee remained on paid administrative leave.
Photo by govexec.com
Photo by govexec.com
GOVERNMENT PORN: House members this week grilled an Environmental Protection
Agency bureaucrat about a an EPA employee found to have watched as much as 6
hours of porn per day on his work computer. The federal porn problem extends
well beyond the EPA, however.
“When an OIG special agent arrived at this employee’s work space to conduct an
interview, the special agent witnessed the employee actively viewing pornography
on his government-issued computer,” Allan Williams, deputy assistant inspector
general for investigations at the EPA, told the House Oversight and Government
Reform Committee last year.
When asked why the employee remains employed with the federal government, EPA
administrator Gina McCarthy snapped, “I actually have to work through the
administrative process, as you know.”
The significantly bigger problem, according to Grothman and other EPA critics,
is the policies and red-tape regulations the agency has promulgated in recent
years that threaten American business and the economy at large. In particular,
the agency’s proposed CO2 rules and the disastrous impact they are projected to
have on U.S. coal-fired power plants and the manufacturers who depend on them.
And the EPA’s push to preemptively kill development projects without the usual
regulatory review because the agency deems them dangerous to the environment.
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Because, again, they need a law for that, U.S. Rep. Mark Meadows,
R-N.C., this year introduced the Eliminating Pornography from
Agencies Act.
The federal government’s porn problem goes beyond the EPA.
A Washington Times investigation last year found pornography on
computers at several federal agencies.
The review of investigation records obtained through a Freedom of
Information Act request uncovered employees busted watching porn at
work. They often blamed a lack of work for their extracurricular
activities.
“He stated he is aware it is against government rules and
regulations, but he often does not have enough work to do and has
free time,” investigators wrote of a Treasury Department employee
who viewed more than 13,000 pornographic images in a six-week span,
according to the Washington Times piece.
“To ignore this issue would not only condone an abuse of taxpayers’
dollars, but also embrace an unhealthy workplace,” Meadows said in a
statement in late March.
But there already are prohibitions against porn and other
unauthorized activities on the federal government job.
A Congressional Budget Office report last month noted Meadows’ bill
would not have a significant cost impact because the “use of
government property for unauthorized purposes is already
prohibited.”
Yet, federal government employees keep doing it.
“While there are rules in place at most agencies to ban this kind of
unprofessional and unacceptable workplace behavior, it continues to
take place. There is absolutely no excuse for federal employees to
be viewing or downloading pornographic materials on the taxpayers’
dime,” Meadows said.
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