I hadn’t planned on blogging today during my own work hours, but I’ll take a few minutes from my lunch to shine some much needed sunlight on this. Maybe I need to shut off my email to get anything done.
From the “why can’t we have fun on the taxpayer’s dime while we are destroying the economy” department. Here’s the content of an email making the rounds internally at the EPA today:
I verified the email sender as being employed within the EPA, both by name and by email headers. That person shall remain anonymous to protect their employment status from repercussions of being a whistleblower.
I verified the phone number in the golf ad as being within the EPA 308 phone group. I also verifed the room number where the golf seminar is being held, room S-4370-80 as being in an EPA facility at:
One Potomac Yard
Conference Center South (4th Floor)
Room S-4370-80
2777 S. Crystal Drive, Arlington, VA 22202
For example, the same conference room was used for this EPA seminar: National Advisory Council for Environmental Policy and Technology (NACEPT) Subcommittee on Promoting Environmental Stewardship (SPES)
September 8th is a Thursday, a workday, 9AM-3PM are of course work hours in the “normal” non governmental world.
And finally, the Nike Golf Learning Center at Reston National is real too, see here.
What I don’t know is who is paying for this EPA golf seminar. But, now that this has seen sunlight, I’m sure some folks closer to the EPA than me will ask.
Chris Horner of ATI comments on this revelation in context to the whining about proposed budget cuts to the EPA, he writes:
Just as EPA seeks to fill the media with stories about their dire budget situtation and the horrors to befall us all if they have to take a haircut, the poor dears.
Imagine my surprise to receive, within the span of minutes, both the following news story in Energy &Environment Daily — “EPA: Jackson summons top aides for budget pow-wow as GOP sharpens knife: In the face of drastic funding cuts and a hostile political environment, U.S. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson has told her top deputies to rank which of their programs they deem to be essential and which could fall on the budgetary chopping block” — and the following invitation, just circulated around EPA headquarters.
Just keep this in mind when the results of this “pow-wow” — ritual demagoguery and a lot of talk about children, seniors and the poor — pop in the next few days. Possibly EPA officials are worried that they might have to shelve golf clinics for the bureaucracy run wild.
“Bureaucracy run wild”. Yes, perhaps it’s time to wrangle in the EPA and remind Lisa Jackson and others at the EPA that you are beholden to the citizens of the United States, not the other way around.
But, it’s all in aid of keeping vital EPA employees healthy and happy! Who could object to such a Noble Cause?
Why does that look familiar from the other side of the Atlantic.
We, too, have astonishing examples of profligacy – with tax-payers’ money – in the UK.
Awaydays for team-building for civil servants, when our soldiers were having to buy their own boots for Afghanistan – and so on.
Any nation that spends more than 20% of GDP on government and its programs is wasting some of it, I suggest.
Hey, Anthony, this is what life is like when you are on any one of the thousands of government teats. Suckle away and … well … the work can always be done tomorrow. Manana, as they say in Spanish.
But you and I, who do the real work in this world, live in a different world.
I really caught myself out the other day, and kicked myself. I said: “I have been really lucky over the last two years, as I have only been sick on my days off.” Ouch!! Now how many on the government teat would say that…?
.
Well, the way I see it, the more time they spend goofing off at work, the less damage they can do to the US economy. 🙂
Considering the damage an out of control EPA can do to the economy, I don’t find this so bad. Perhaps they could be all be encouraged to take an extended cruise as a team and moral builing exersize. I know having that entire agency on extended holiday would improve my moral.
Are ya sure we can’t save any money on the EPA’s budget
Aren’t golf courses really horrible for the environment? Shouldn’t the EPA do something about them?
Cheers!! could not have said it better myself. More people need to start speaking up
Great subliminal ad… the ball represents your money and the green represents the EPA… any question?
Ah yes… it’s the GOP sharpening the knives…[for cutting the budget]
While that sounds horrifying and reprehensible to some, to me it’s a glorious thought!
There has to be a way to train some of these nut-jobs that think being against the waste and ridiculous micromanagement of the EPA is somehow being for uncontrolled polluting and environmental destruction…
You could sure save a hell of a lot on consultants, the sort that used to work for the EPA and now seem to get loads of government work, especially on global warming.
Check this out: http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/originals/the_un_states_epa.html
Forward to your Congresscritters! I have, including Inhofe…..
I don’t waste my time with Oregon’s blue Island reps and
senators…
Maybe they’re hoping that, if they polish up their game, they might be invited to join the Big Boss on one of his many rounds.
My first thoughts are that the seminar is promotional and therefore is put on for free in hopes of signing up some new customers for their golf instruction course. But even if there is no cost to the taxpayer this should be done after hours and off premise.
Reminds me of the time I was in DC late last fall on a rather cold. I have a picture of a security guard standing if front of the EPA building holding the door open so he could have a smoke. He held in open for nearly 15 minutes and not one entered or left through the door.
I read today one of the top women in charge of air quality testified in a congressional hearing and didn’t know what the CO2 level was in the air. Don’t sweat the little stuff.
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/epa-air-chief-is-co2-clueless/?singlepage=true
Remember, it all starts at the top. Our Fearless Leader, Teacher, and Friend sets the example for the rest of the Executive Branch to follow. You never know when the POTUS will call on you for a meeting on the back 9 to discuss CO2 regulations. You need to be prepared.
Green Jobs.
No, no, you don’t understand. The grand tourney in Durban will commence soon, and the West has to cut a fine figure to impress delegates from, say, Japan or the Near East, who unfortunately may not be swayed by finagled figures (but golf they understand). This is work, and dangerous work at that (strained backs, etc.). The logical next step will be to bolster those brave guys’ tolerance to cocaine and other dire necessities these circles cannot do without.
Perhaps they could be all be encouraged to take an extended cruise as a team and moral builing exersize. … and let it sink.
It’s time to stop EPA totally: EPA just forced the city of New York to put a concrete cover over a large reservoir at a cost of $1.6 billion to prevent bird shit from getting in the water. What next? Will they require the Cities on the Great Lakes to put a cover over Lake Erie to prevent bird shit from getting into the lake which is the water supply for twenty or thirty cities on Lake Erie? The EPA is totally insane. Every water treatment system is designed to deal with some contamination,right?
I’m onboard with the team building exercise. I understand that there are still some tribes in New Guinea that would welcome the participants with open arms. They could partake in some of the tribal rituals, and in return, we might get Bon Appetite some new recipes for long pig. /sark
Uh, this is a bit over the top. Give it a rest. It’s no different than the social and hobby activities (amateur radio, car repair, softball, soccer, running and more) at other agencies on-site using government facilities such as e-mail, bulletin boards, rooms and grassy areas and at all times of the day. Just because it’s 9am-5pm doesn’t mean the government is paying for the activities. EPA employees get personal time just like everywhere else. Other than the use of room S-whatever, there’s no indication of using government funds and, for all you know, the room was rented.
And just think.
An EPA employee is more likely to die on the job than to be fired.
Since it is such a high-risk employment, you all ought to have a heart.
Those poor EPA people.
Working for Lisa Jackson would make me tense, for sure.
Publishing a steady stream of lies will do that to you.
Of course they got the science behind it WRONG as well 🙂
Here is a link to the best physics explanation of golf and how to do it I’ve come across:
http://www.kuykendallgolf.com/home/default.cfm
PS No I don’t get a penny from him for promoting the site.