Author of ‘EPA Playbook’? Report claims notorious fraudster was behind costly EPA regulations

John Beale, the former EPA official who fooled his bosses into believing he worked for the CIA, was deeply involved in crafting costly environmental standards which still are having an impact today -- though he came into the job with little, if any, environmental experience.

The details were included in a 67-page report from Republicans on the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, which claims the fraudster's role should now throw those rules into question.

The report is the product of months of research into the case of Beale, a top official in the Office of Air and Radiation, who was sentenced to prison in December for defrauding the agency with his CIA lie. It details Beale's role in crafting an aggressive regulatory approach which the report dubs the "EPA Playbook."

"Ultimately, the guiding [principle] behind the Playbook is the Machiavellian [principle] that the ends will justify the means," the report says.

I can't believe that a completely unqualified, fraudster could be employed at the highest level of a US Government department (sarcasm). It is hard to believe that this man was able to get away with this for so long and even write many of the rules for the EPA's oversight of American industry. While some of what he produced might still be a good idea and even needed to protect our environment; this will call into question all of his work as well as his motivations.

We need a good, solid review of the policies he has created and perhaps a streamlined, but still effective environmental policy. The only way to restore faith in the EPA is to find out how this happened and why.

Source

reply to post by Metallicus

I can't believe that a completely unqualified, fraudster could be employed at the highest level of a US Government department (sarcasm)

Aren't we lucky to have a government that is so careful about crafting regulations?

Next thing you know, they will be trying to outlaw heating your home with a woodstove...

butcherguy
reply to post by Metallicus

 

I can't believe that a completely unqualified, fraudster could be employed at the highest level of a US Government department (sarcasm)

Aren't we lucky to have a government that is so careful about crafting regulations?

Next thing you know, they will be trying to outlaw heating your home with a woodstove...

This really is a pretty big scandal. Maybe people are too distracted by all the other events around the world right now to care or maybe they are simply so desensitized to Government corruption that this doesn't even register for them anymore.

Metallicus

butcherguy
reply to post by Metallicus

 

I can't believe that a completely unqualified, fraudster could be employed at the highest level of a US Government department (sarcasm)

Aren't we lucky to have a government that is so careful about crafting regulations?

Next thing you know, they will be trying to outlaw heating your home with a woodstove...

This really is a pretty big scandal. Maybe people are too distracted by all the other events around the world right now to care or maybe they are simply so desensitized to Government corruption that this doesn't even register for them anymore.

After all of the other scandals that IMO outrank Watergate, that have been given a pass, who wouldn't be desensitized?

Trust me. Idiocy of this sort is not confined to just our government. My husband deals with regulatory in his position. I can tell you all sorts of horror stories of regulations that have been foisted off that make no sense. In fact, he's part of a lobbying group that pushes back on the worst of them, and may have to go to a meeting in a couple of months because he is in a position to have the relevant data to prove why a newly proposed regulation is stupid. I'll give two examples:

1: This one wants a standard deviation done as part of an effort to test product efficacy. That's not weird. The idiocy comes in where they want all the tests for the standard deviation done out of the same bottle of product ... Say what? Do you want to test the efficacy of the product or the test method because any variation you would get from method would come from the test itself. Using the product in the same bottle would be a constant.

2: Someone else wants to have them run a test that would have them literally trying to culture and grow dead cells ... That's biologically impossible.

These were written by bureaucrats who thought they sounded good, and either no one vetted them or no one cared because no one knew better. And of course, now it is incumbent upon the company to tactfully explain that these are idiotic.

reply to post by butcherguy


They won't outlaw it. They'll just hit the stove manufacturers with such severe regulations that making the stoves will become so expensive that nobody will want to buy them. Here is a link to an editorial commentary on the new EPA rules. lakeexpo.com...

Think it won't happen? Take a look at the EPA's Tier IV diesel exhaust emissions regulations. They were so stringent that consumers bought up 2007 model year engines and crated them until they would be needed. The lack of sale for the Tier IVa emissions compliant engine drove one major engine manufacturer out of the on-highway market. The price for aftertreatment added about $5k to the total price of the engine as sold to OEMs, who then would have to pass the price onto the end customer.

Oh and if you did not know, the EPA has been regulation wood burning stove manufacturers since 1988!
www.epa.gov...

The EPA needs to be reigned in.

the EPA can KMA.

I have a cutting torch and mig welder.