Washington, D.C. — The Institute for Energy Research released today a white paper assessing the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) failure to detect the massive fraud of former EPA official John Beale, who cheated American taxpayers out of at least $900,000 over 13 years.
The paper, entitled “Dirty Business at the EPA: A Report Assessing the Administrative Failures that Enabled The Fraud of John C. Beale,” examines how the EPA enabled Mr. Beale’s fraud and how the agency’s oversight became increasingly lax under former Office of Air and Radiation (OAR) Assistant Administrator Gina McCarthy as demonstrated by the chart below:
The following are key findings from the white paper:
John Beale defrauded U.S. taxpayers out of almost $900,000 between 2000 and 2012, with his fraud accelerating rapidly under Gina McCarthy’s watch as OAR Assistant Administrator between 2009 and 2012.
Beale committed more time fraud under McCarthy ($239,059) than all of his previous four supervisors combined ($144,429).
Beale’s combined time and bonus fraud was $373,799 under McCarthy, by far the most of any of Beale’s supervisors since 2000.
As Beale was perpetuating the vast majority of his fraud between 2009 and 2012, McCarthy failed to act for more than two years to stop Beale’s fraud while McCarthy’s OAR was imposing the costliest air rules in U.S. history.
Neither the U.S. Attorney nor the Inspector General have assessed the amount Beale stole in bogus “sick leave” due to his feigned malaria diagnosis. Until the full extent of his fraudulent leave is public, taxpayers have little assurance that they have been repaid in full for their losses due to Beale’s extensive fraud.
IER President Thomas Pyle issued the following statement:
“John Beale may be in jail for his crimes, but this case is certainly not closed. Until EPA regains the trust of the American public that suspected fraud will be reported, investigated, and addressed by senior EPA officials, there is little reason to believe that the agency won’t continue to callously abuse taxpayer dollars. The web of professional and personal entanglements, the administrative incompetence, and the seeming willingness to conceal the full extent of Beale’s fraud raise questions that deserve answers.
“At a time when EPA is expanding its regulatory reach into new sectors of the American economy, and going full steam ahead in implementing President Obama’s economically destructive Climate Action Plan, public trust in the agency has eroded to a historic low. The public deserves nothing less than the complete record of John Beale’s fraud and the actions taken — or not taken — by his supervisors and colleagues to expose his crimes.”
The Institute for Energy Research (IER) is a not-for-profit organization that conducts intensive research and analysis on the functions, operations, and government regulation of global energy markets. IER maintains that freely-functioning energy markets provide the most efficient and effective solutions to today’s global energy and environmental challenges and, as such, are critical to the well-being of individuals and society.
