This is stunning, yet not surprising. We know people get caught up in “the cause”, and that there are massive egos involved in some of the more visible climate advocates that lead them to irrational excesses of word and deed, but this one takes the cake.
This NBC News (coverage of the EPA internal*) investigation reveals that the highest paid individual at the EPA, John C. Beale, bilked the agency out of nearly $1 million in salary and other benefits over a decade.
The EPA’s highest-paid employee and a leading expert on climate change deserves to go to prison for at least 30 months for lying to his bosses and saying he was a CIA spy working in Pakistan so he could avoid doing his real job, say federal prosecutors.
Beale perpetrated his fraud largely by failing to show up at the EPA for months at a time, including one 18-month stretch starting in June 2011 when he did “absolutely no work,” as Kern, Beale’s lawyer, acknowledged in his court filing.
What was he doing? Galavanting around the world first class and staying in 5 star hotels at taxpayers expense, that’s what.
The two sentencing memos, along with documents obtained by NBC News, offer new details about what some officials describe as one of the most audacious, and creative, federal frauds they have ever encountered.
When he first began looking into Beale’s deceptions last February, “I thought, ‘Oh my God, How could this possibly have happened in this agency?” said EPA Assistant Inspector General Patrick Sullivan, who spearheaded the Beale probe, in an interview with NBC News. “I’ve worked for the government for 35 years. I’ve never seen a situation like this.”
And of course, here’s the “anything for the cause” blindness that allowed it all to happen:
Sullivan said he doubted Beale’s fraud could occur at any federal agency other than the EPA. “There’s a certain culture here at the EPA where the mission is the most important thing,” he said. “They don’t think like criminal investigators. They tend to be very trusting and accepting.”
Translation: he’s doing good work for “the cause”, so there’s no need to look further.
More here: http://investigations.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/12/16/21911592-climate-change-experts-fraud-was-crime-of-massive-proportion-say-feds?lite (h/t to WUWT reader Martin Rettig)
While this is a massive fraud of salary and benefits, one has to wonder what sort of fraud this man may have perpetrated in his role as a climate official. According to the story,
These include helping to rewrite the Clean Air Act in 1990, heading up EPA delegations to United Nations conferences on climate change in 2000 and 2001, and helping to negotiate agreements to reduce carbon emissions with China, India and other nations.
In this EPA document, they don’t seem to be looking into any of those things, only his travel abuse. I think they have “team blinders” on since I haven’t found anything where they look into the quality of his climate work.
The culture of corruption in Washington will be the death of the republic if it isn’t reined in soon. Already our government feels like that of a third world country.
Related articles
- Climate Change Expert’s Fraud Was ‘Crime of Massive Proportion,’ Say Feds (freepatriot.org)
- Feds charge EPA’s climate-change guru with fraud (wnd.com)
- Third EPA Official Implicated in $900K Scam (freebeacon.com)
- REPORT: EPA knew for years of illegal salary going to ex-official… (washingtonpost.com)
- EPA’s Christmas Gift to the Nation: 134 More Regulations (politicaloutcast.com)
* edited for accuracy
Wonder if his former boss, “Richard Windsor” (aka Lisa Jackson) testified on his behalf?
Fraud? In our government?…the most transparent administration EVAH?
Truly hard to believe 😉
Jim from Maine
We had a similar, albeit “cheaper” scandal in this state several years back. An employee did not show up for work for 12 years, yet was continually paid and her supervisors even gave her evaluations. The organization was a cooperative run by the state and the feds. Community development if I remember correctly.
Any wonder we are $17 trillion in debt?
“I’ve worked for the government for 35 years. I’ve never seen a situation like this.”
Govt Employee Chekalist:
1. Blinkers on: Check.
Its a Travesty that this scientists extremely important work is being interrupted by legal harassment…
Boy his “bosses” must be one heck of a fool to not get agency verification on such a huge claim as that. Shoot, my wife works at the VA and has a heck of a time just trying to get more than a week off approved by her bosses and they always refuse to reimburse for any portion of conference attendances even if it is a part of maintaining certifications.
Probably as a result of arrogance! Once people believe they can get away with it, their excesses get worse the more it is overlooked! Happens in the UK too!
playing the devil’s advocate here…maybe this was the least costly outcome of his job as far as an impact on the economy goes.
Spell check last para:
Reign: What a king or queen does
Rein: To control by a physical lead, originally in reference to draft animals
Rain: Drops keep fallin’ on my head
The [Washington] Post previously reported that in 2012, McCarthy notified the EPA general counsel’s office about her suspicions. That office, in turn, notified the EPA’s Office of Homeland Security, which has no investigative authority [Note 1], delaying the inspector general’s probe for months. Source: WaPo Dec. 10.
[Note 1] but I bet they are armed.
Our government: dishonesty, incompetence, stupidity. Pick any three.
Sic semper Tyrannis.
==============
Grandpa Simpson warned us about the EPA…
I’ve seen it go both ways with government employee waste, fraud and abuse. If they cross someone higher they get caught and dealt with relatively quickly. If they don’t, then it seems it can go on forever. I’m amazed that the IG’s “surprise” statement.
Try terminating a GS employee for cause. It only takes a year or so and you can get midnight phone calls from OPM asking if you really want to do it. The system is set so you can’t easily get rid of the abusers.
Isn’t this old news? Or is more out about it then what was known before?
Spelling corrected. (“rein”)
There’s a bit of perfect symmetry at work here – in an industry (climate change/global warming/whatever) that is, at its heart, a total fraud, it stand to reason that the greatest and most skilled con artists would rise to the top. Not the penny ante pikers who write papers that no one reads, but the real thing, the ponzi schemers, the “catch me if you can” manipulators like this guy.
I suspect, if we were to know the whole truth, that the only difference between this man and someone like Pachouri is that one of them has done a much better job of paying off their respective officials in their home country.
That’s really Beale’s only big mistake – he forgot to spread the wealth around enough, at least not to the “right” people.
Enablers above and below him in the hierarchy. This calls for an investigation. Get the Inspector General on it. Well, someone anyway.
===========
“Beale. JOHN Beale.”
His lawyer in trying to get him leniency writes in the nbcnews.com article: “With the help of his therapist, Mr. Beale has come to recognize that, beyond the motive of greed, his theft and deception were animated by a highly self-destructive and dysfunctional need to engage in excessively reckless, risky behavior.” and also said Beale was driven “to manipulate those around him through the fabrication of grandiose narratives … that are fueled by his insecurities.”
“fabrication of grandiose narratives” that seems to fit a lot of the CAGW usual suspects.
Now, Taph, you know he was working for the CIA. A small price to pay the better for us never to know.
=======
Have you ever talked to a lifetime government employee? Their mindset toward money is warped. Governments take; businesses must earn. Lifetime government employees never ever realize that when costs go up, prices go up too. Because the government takes money they do not have to work to get that money. They think you can just take more. This make corruption and waste much easier.
Hehe. Just like the good ole UK, with its government full of scammers and troughers. Welcome to the club – and to the Third World (Futures Division).
Mary McCarthy said,
“Bureaucracy, the rule of no one, has become the modern form of despotism.”
After reading the article, I must confess, being a Canadian, I yawned. Mr. Beale was simply acting like one of our Senators in Parliament, and we have 100 of them. Ho-hum.
“The culture of corruption in Washington will be the death of the republic if it isn’t reined in soon. Already our government feels like that of a third world country.”
The biggest rip off of all is right in front of our noses and totally legal..which is the buying of politicians by lobbyists. I simply cannot understand how this is allowed to go on. Only solution I can think of is term limits, so that these guys are not constantly needing to raise money to run for reelection. One term and out. But that discussion seems to have gone away.
Spell check last para:
Reign: What a king or queen does
Rein: To control by a physical lead, originally in reference to draft animals
Rain: Drops keep fallin’ on my head
And don’t forget
Rayne: A totally awesome hot vampire chick, dude, that goes around killing other vampires for revenge. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rayne_%28BloodRayne%29
Sorry, gotta lighten the moment. The problem is that spell checkers don’t catch well-formed homophones. So if you use two instead of to or too or tu, their is only a small chance that a fairly sophisticated grammar checker can due the job. All two often, through, they will parse the text back to the you sir with lops of errors consisting of simple substitutions or homophones in plaice. For example, this entire reply past the won in my browser.
rgb
REPLY: Thinks, I depreciate it – Anthony
” Already our government feels like that of a third world country.” Come to the UK and see what it is really like to be heading for a banana republic.
I’m with Dr. Spencer on this. This guy was probably one of the more benign parasites. Rather than soak up money to further damage our economy, he just soaked up money.
rgb, funny! It’s also illustrative of the problems with speech-to-text software.
Sometimes I’m glad I never learned to touch-type; my fingers won’t automatically type the wrong word. I have to think about, and peck out, almost every word.
From the freebeacon link: “Beale is scheduled to be sentenced in federal court on Dec. 18. He has agreed to pay more than $1 million in restitution and civil forfeitures as part of his plea deal.”
Perhaps the next question is , having blown all this money on travel and hotels where is he going to get the $1 million to pay in restitution ? Did he have this massive fortune before he became a public employee?
Perhaps the feds should be looking deeper into his lifestyle expenditure and declared income sources.
Should have attended the AGU legal defense presentation.
Hey, if Chuck Barris of Gong Show infamy can be a CIA hitman, why not this EPA schmuck?
for the sardonically challenged: /SARC
The EPA should be “gonged”.
Oops, mistake in link; here it is: Chuck Barris, CIA hitman
I need more coffee.
Well now we know just how much care the EPA puts into vetting studies purporting to support global warming.
If Beale were a judge, prosecutor or criminal investigator tied to this kind of deception, potentially every conviction in which he participated would be open to appeal on grounds of prosecutorial misconduct. I don’t know if the same principle applies to regulatory law, but it would be interesting if it did. The presumption in administrative law is when government officials present materials, evidence, findings, etc., to the courts that they are being truthful.
With Beale you have a documented case of a senior EPA official who repeatedly lied to his own agency for years and therefore the presumption of truthfulness cannot be granted to any submission made or signed by Beale over the same period. In any instance where Beale’s submissions were materially relevant to a regulatory decision, that decision should be reviewed.
It won’t happen of course (ample precedents set by MBH hockey-stickery), but it should.
His defense attorney is using the fact that he is a psychopath as a defense:
“The Disturbing Link Between Psychopathy And Leadership”
http://www.forbes.com/sites/victorlipman/2013/04/25/the-disturbing-link-between-psychopathy-and-leadership/
Traits of a psychopath(not all of them have every trait)
http://psychopathyawareness.wordpress.com/2011/10/03/the-list-of-psychopathy-symptoms/
I found this to be a very enlightening book on the subjext::
“Without Conscience” by Robert Hare.
I am at a loss for words. Or maybe the stink is too great and I have to run away. As we knew from the day that the “Green Jobs Czar” was appointed, Global Warming advocates have been awash in money. As rivers of money grow, the number of pirates who work the river grows indefinitely large. The waste and fraud in government today surely must be at a record level. I just hope that the defendant’s attorney subpoenaed Richard Windsor’s emails. At least the emails will be collected somewhere.
It took them years to figure out that he didn’t really work for the CIA. How long will it take them to figure out that he’s not really a climate change expert either?
WEll it looks like mainstream PRAVDA has awakened to the AGW scam
http://english.pravda.ru/science/earth/18-11-2013/126171-global_warming_fraud-0/
Mike Maguire “His defense attorney is using the fact that he is a psychopath as a defense:”
Perhaps we can look forward to Lew entering the fray on his behalf – there’s probably a very long word that describes his behaviour that should explain away the whole thing – to at least 97% of the jury.
…including one 18-month stretch starting in June 2011 when he did “absolutely no work,” as Kern, Beale’s lawyer, acknowledged…
Why should he NEED to do any work? The science is settled…
I’m not sure which is worse: doing “absolutely no work” or actually working.
You have to ask .. how many more like him are there in the government ?
When will it be that we demand that the EPA outline the scientific case for their CO2 endangerment filing? The Supreme Court did not rule on the scientific evidence, but deferred that question to the agency for their judgment. To my knowledge, they simply proclaimed it without producing analysis or evidence.
Dodgy Geezer – “Why should he NEED to do any work? The science is settled…”
Yes we know that but the communication strategy still needs refining – I mean, if it’s so obvious it must be a bugger to communicate it to the plebs.
Anyone who has worked in private industry is quite familiar with how well executives live on the company’s dime. There may be massive layoffs but the private jet is always going to be well stocked with food and drink. It is not only government that has problems like this
Hmmm. Maybe Roy Spencer has a point. It seems while active at the EPA, Mr. Beale was pivotal in covering up critique of (extremely costly) EPA regulations from other government agencies.
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/1997/07/can-no-one-stop-the-epa
-Chip
If you like your fraud, you can keep your fraud.
Beale’s wife, Dr. Nancy Kete (a climate crusader in her own right) is every bit as guilty as he is, unless we are to believe that Beale took all those lavish “CIA” trips on his own.
http://reclaimourrepublic.wordpress.com/2013/10/04/john-c-beale-and-a-nancy-kete-and-a-million-dollar-fraud-scheme/
@johnbuk
Dodgy Geezer – “Why should he NEED to do any work? The science is settled…”
Yes we know that but the communication strategy still needs refining – I mean, if it’s so obvious it must be a bugger to communicate it to the plebs.
And that’s what he was doing. Long ‘strategy refining’ sessions. On the beach, in the bar…. does this man never stop working for the good of his fellow man.. ?
So “..the highest paid individual at the EPA..John C. Beale..a leading expert on climate change”
Do they mean – a leading expert on fandangling with the UNIPCC ?
What lunatic asylum are we descending into.
Or would most asylums be occupied with more productive people ?
@TAG
Anyone who has worked in private industry is quite familiar with how well executives live on the company’s dime. There may be massive layoffs but the private jet is always going to be well stocked with food and drink. It is not only government that has problems like this..
I still blame the government. Corporate taxes are now so high that the poor businessmen are forced to entertain themselves to an early grave in a last-ditch attempt to retain whatever profits they may have made… /sarc
It isn’t appropriate to say an “NBC News investigation reveals” anything. John C. Beale was tried for this in open court months ago. He’s openly admitted to what the article says. This has been on the public record for some time now. Plenty of people have discussed it before this piece was written. For example, it was covered in the Washington Post months ago. Heck, even the Huffington Post covered it.
I get this story may be new to a lot of people, and there’s definitely a story to be told about how little attention this has gotten, but I’ve known about it for months since coming across it in a newspaper article. NBC News didn’t discover anything.
REPLY: OK, point taken, until this morning, I was not aware of it at all. I’ll edit appropriately – Anthony
I have read accounts on this case before. But somehow any mention of his being a glowball warming guru seem to have been left out.
“Sullivan said he doubted Beale’s fraud could occur at any federal agency other than the EPA. “There’s a certain culture here at the EPA where the mission is the most important thing,” he said. “They don’t think like criminal investigators. They tend to be very trusting and accepting.””
I think the word he is searching for is ‘gullible’, as in, “the EPA is the most gullible of any federal agency if something seems to support their agenda.”
And on that I would agree.
so is $206,000 a year the going rate?
“These include helping to rewrite the Clean Air Act in 1990 …”
So who is doing what to whom? Does this affect the Supreme Courts ruling?
http://www.oyez.org/cases/2000-2009/2006/2006_05_1120#argument
If I read this correct the EPA was arguing it had no power to regulate co2 by the Clean Air Act and was forced to do so by the Supreme Court that upheld(overruled) in Massachusett’s favor. (but i’m no attorney, help anyone?) Of course this was in 2006 and not now but this man may have likewise tainted the act that the Supreme Court used for it’s ruling. Hmm.
Chip Knappenberger says:
December 16, 2013 at 10:38 am
Hmmm. Maybe Roy Spencer has a point. It seems while active at the EPA, Mr. Beale was pivotal in covering up critique of (extremely costly) EPA regulations from other government agencies.
————-
Oh, shoot. And there I was thinking Beale was one of the harmless ones.
“How long will it take them to figure out that he’s not really a climate change expert either?”
Actually he is a climate change expert, fraud is fraud.
phillipbratby says:
December 16, 2013 at 9:34 am
” Already our government feels like that of a third world country.” Come to the UK and see what it is really like to be heading for a banana republic…………….”
Phillip, I thought the UK was turning into an Islamic Republic?
Also, The CIA will soon announce that one of their agents was claiming to be a Climate Scientist.
And collected $millions in salary and was seldom there…. ;^)
The NBC news story includes this quote from Beale’s lawyer John Kern: “Kern also said Beale was driven “to manipulate those around him through the fabrication of grandiose narratives … that are fueled by his insecurities””. Sounds like Al Gore and so many more of his disciples. It still galls me to remember all the “studies” that have come out about the supposed mental health issues of catastrophic climate change non-believers.
TAG says:
December 16, 2013 at 10:36 am
————————————————-
I have never heard of a private company continuing to employ someone who never showed up at the office for 18 months with the exception of Initech, although their employee continued to show up to work for 18 months after he was technically fired.
But I suspect Beale was wearing 37 pieces of flair which kept him out of trouble for so long.
I know I am echoing Dr. Spencer here, but maybe paying EPA climate officials to NOT work is an extremely wise investment, and a trend we should encourage.
…maybe he was searching for all of the Hiroshima-sized nuclear explosions that Gore says are going off all of the time?
Alberta Slim says:
December 16, 2013 at 11:25 am
Bingo! This is how the intelligence community is secretly funding itself away from all that pesky (but still not very effective) Congressional oversight. They send trained operatives to infiltrate all the various green groups awash in public funding to “fight climate change” and siphon off a good bit of it (or most of it if internal controls are on the same level as the EPA’s) to secret offshore slush fund accounts.
/sarc — or maybe not. I’d better check with Lewandowsky first.
The comment that I find most disturbing:
“There’s a certain culture here at the EPA where the mission is the most important thing,” he said. “They don’t think like criminal investigators. They tend to be very trusting and accepting.”
As I understand it, the EPA spends a lot of time in court, defending actions from environmental groups, that they gave money to, to institute those legal actions.
Oh wait. The people EPA always lose, and have to bring in legislation, outside the authority of elected representatives.
It must be that trusting and accepting nature that causes the EPA to lose.
I hope he gets no leniency, I really dislike people that mixes bullying, intimidation, charm and just being “fresh”, ever exploring and exploiting the limit of what they can get away with. Give them a meek superior or board and they will serve themselves with both hands. If they had really checked this guy out he most likely would have track of inflated expense reports going back to day one. To bad they only bothered going back a few years. Given they will not get their money back I understand why they choose to stop when the case is strong enough.
The irony of it all is, as Dr Spencer points out, that defrauding the governement on expenses is small potatoes compared to his share of responsibility for “CAGW prevention costs”. But he may claim negligence and escape the 25 to life he deserves 🙂
So, say this money from this guy and thousands of others doing the same or more or less,,
and say 50% of it is converted to cash and handed underhanded to Democrats like Al Gore , Obama and John Kerry tu use to get elected.
There would appear to be adequate evidence in the public view now to indicate that Beale not only had “insecurities” he was attempting to cover, but that he was a chronic liar as well. It seems that someone to “urge” EPA to reassess every single thing that Beale has ever done in the agency’s name.
I understand Beale is married… All of this leads me to wonder, too, how long his wife will stand by him as she reportedly knew nothing about any of this either, especially since the government will be reimbursed for its losses; I would think that’s going to make an impact on her quality of life. Apparently she liked the money and the fact that he took a lot of trips. Makes me a little suspicious of her, too.
Sigmundb said:
December 16, 2013 at 11:53 am
I hope he gets no leniency…
————————————–
He will likely get a nice new job like
Richard WindsorLisa Jackson did.from WaPo, 28 May 2013:
“Former EPA head Lisa P. Jackson becomes Apple’s top environmental advisor”.
They also will probably both receive behind-the-scenes golden handshakes for their duty to the warmunist party.
If your boss at a government agency can use an alias to keep emails secret and FOIA-free, employees might find a way to deceive too and consider that to be quite normal.
A fish rots from the head down.
What was he doing? Galavanting around the world first class and staying in 5 star hotels at taxpayers expense, that’s what.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Mmmm isn’t that what they all do?…Oh and preach to everyone else not to travel by air/car etc whilst completely ignoring their own surmon.
But, they might still have a need for a ‘bag man’*. The flow of cash has not stopped.
.
.
* Bag man (or climate science bagman) – is a person designated to collect dirty money, e.g. in a protection racket. A bag man may also be known as a delivery boy or running man. Originally applied only to Mafia members collecting for mob bosses, but later spread in application for use in corrupt police precincts for patrolmen who picked up and delivered bribes from the local mob(s) to the precinct captain.
Bagman commonly receive a fraction of the money collected. The term can also be used for a person who performs small tasks for the Mafia, such as chauffeuring or transporting goods…
.
So, not one prediction that the alarmists have made has been realized. In fact, just the opposite has happened. You know what this means: “It’s worse than we thought!”
Should be “Business as usual at the EPA from agency’s top paid climate official”. There – I fixed it for you.
Move over, Frank Abagnale, Jr.
Well, morally and mentally they are all AWOL at EPA. It just takes time when auditors are the main management system after the fact.
According to this article: http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/10/01/fake_spys_900000_fraud_leaves_congress_gobsmacked
Beale’s boss shares a vacation home with Beale and secured a $9,000 discount on his Mercedes via some form of ‘lobbying’ activity.
So – the general shock over this incident may be overstated.
To be fair to the EPA they where probably so grateful that he was not following the normal procedure of screwing everything up , that they felt the best thing they could do was to not ask to many questions In case he started to.
What’s with EPA officials going mad with power? First “Ms. Richard Windsor”, now John C. Beale, CIA super agent and undercover Michelin guide inspector.
Life is imitating pop-art –
And I never thought there could possibly be an appropriate use for the following link, but the case of John C. Beale demands it –
I suspect the take away message is this – When the President of the US is a liar, and you are the highest paid official in a US agency enforcing what you know to be lies, then the world has clearly gone mad. Who cares what you do? Just go crazy with power and other peoples money!
SET HIM FREE
The man should clearly be set free. I hope that he had a good lawyer.
As the climate change expert of the EPA, he had to deal daily with made up, imagined stuff.
For instance sea levels rise by the same 3mm/year for 150 years now, as everyone can check with NOAA. Yet this fellow had the EPA blame our utilities for producing catastrophic sea level rises.
Same for global temperatures. They didn’t rise for 16 years, yet the EPA is blaming utilities for causing catastrophic global warming.
A million dollars is what we spend every half hour to make up such climate stories.
A billion dollars is what we spend every day based on those stories.
So clearly someone working for the EPA loses the distinction between what is real and imagined, as well as the true value of money.
In fact that appears to be a job requirement.
Believing that you are James Bond and living like him, while you man a desk,
comes natural in the fictional world of man made climate change.
So Beale took the EPA for the fools we know they are. Classic.
anthony –
u agreed to edit your comments based on Brandon Shollenberger saying the story isn’t new. however, Brandon Shollenberger also said:
“I get this story may be new to a lot of people, and there’s definitely a story to be told about how little attention this has gotten”
do a google search on the fake climate expert – john beale epa – and click “news”. i get 206 results & almost none are major MSM.
then do a search – fake interpeter mandela – 152,000 results – every MSM in the world.
anything that might undermine the CAGW narrative in any way is given short by the MSM.
How did this Administration let this (the investigation) slip by its Privilege Filter? At least they’re keeping the distortion of the treaties and EPA regs by politicos from exposure. So far.
“Only solution I can think of is term limits, so that these guys are not constantly needing to raise money to run for reelection. One term and out. But that discussion seems to have gone away.”
That would merely encourage them to trough as fast as possible, since they’ll only get one chance.
The only real solution is to radically cull the size of the trough. A government limited to the few things the Constitution allows it to do would be of little interest to troughers, because it would have so little money to spend.
Beal is a natural product of years of “service” in the bureaus.
Term limits for bureaucrats, never more than 5 years maximum employment on the public purse.
Currently these career clowns are completely divorced from reality, to ensure civil service becomes that again, no hires without real work experience and no career employees or pensions.
What we have helping us right now can best be described as a Kleptocracy, taking wealth by force and fraud, to benefit the crew.
If anyone is looking to get into the EPA and work up to Beale’s level, my wife came across some online courses (free!) that may teach you all you need.
At https://itunes.apple.com/itunes-u/law-2723-fall-2008-uc-berkeley/id354822467?mt=10
Berkeley, so you know it’s good, and iTunes so us all-I-can-afford-is-Linux folk are excluded, it has course titles:
These are all from 2008, so you’ll need to look elsewhere for courses like “Keeping the Faith after Copenhagen,” “International Travel and Outreach to Climate Scientists,” and “Climate Funding – Your Slice of the Pie.”
Based on climate gate, the team as revealed in “Hiding the Decline”, the deep culture of misrepresentation and deceit inherent in AGW,and the [revelations] in the paper this [weekend], this individual is [doing] nothing unusual.
Lights attract flies. So ironic.
Why is NBC news just reporting it? I google John Beale and see that Huffington Post, Fox News, and Think Progress reported it at the end of September.
Note to this lawyer dude: if your client needs to engage in “reckless” behavior, a hooker in Bangkok would be plenty risky, and a whole lot cheaper.
Go to jail, do not pass go, and most assuredly do NOT collect $200.
So you’re telling me the top climate change dude at the EPA is a con artist?
No WAY!!!
Is there a list of EPA officials who hobnobbed at Enron?
And if you can’t afford your fraud, the government will subsidize you. Fraud for every Man, Woman, Child, Cat, Dog, Parakeet, and even Chihuahuas.
Wouldn’t it be nice if everyone in government were honest, hard working and trustworthy? No let me rephrase that: wouldn’t it be nice if anyone in government were… etc.
I think Sen. Jim Inhofe will be all over this like stink on, well, you know, biomass!
The other ones at the EPA / the entire government are smarter than him. They don’t say they work for the CIA; they don’t vanish for months, they just come in every day, sit in their cubicle, watch kitten videos on the Internet, take their paycheck, and continue to do so every day from here to kingdom come. And that’s all legal.
And we will have to cull them all when they make energy so expensive that we can’t afford that parasitic sector anymore; well actually we can’t now.
Roy Spencer says:
December 16, 2013 at 8:56 am
Roy,
You’ve got a point there.
While he was out playing, he wasn’t writing up any new regulations.
Hmmm…
Why don’t we send all the EPA folks off on perpetual ‘research’ trips. We’ll just keep them too busy to propose any new regulations.
“… including one 18-month stretch starting in June 2011 when he did “absolutely no work,””
So either his job was completely unnecessary or (supposedly) necessary work wasn’t being done properly and nobody questioned why not.
Someone in power should be pressing for an explanation, but I’m not holding my breath.
When I was at work we had quarterly and annual reviews of performance. Or is that somewhat passé these days?
Where were the regulators?
And the culture of secrecy and fear that has been cultivated in the US aids that. Mention the terrors you fight and everybody agrees, a real danger! How can you endanger the security of the United States of America by asking nosey questions and being skeptical?
(Any parallels between the fight against terror, and the fight against climate change, are purely coincidental, by the way. And while we are at it: after all the data collecting by both the government and private corporations, and after all the cases where data has been leaked, lost or stolen, after all that I am not going to give you my email-address – bad enough that everybody is tracking everybody as is.)
[No, site policy requires a valid email address for commenting. No address, no (future) comments. Mod]
If the EPA thought he was undercover for the CIA, they should have let the CIA pay his salary and benefits.
Well, in all fairness, it’s hard to tell that any climate expert has done any actual work. In fact, for many, the object is to avoid actual science in the first place. Compounded with the EPA’s cause of stopping work, you got a blind spot the size of — the federal government.
He was just riding the “Global Warming Gravy Train” like most other climate scientists.
Other agencies of the government often supply funds and people to the C.I.A. It is standard procedure to cover up the actions and costs. This guy merely took advantage of standard procedure for a personal gravy train. I am sure he is not the only one. Just one that got caught. pg
Update:
Beale was sentenced to 32 months in federal prison on Wednesday in Washington.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/12/18/the-epa-s-million-dollar-con-man.html
Good, he can say “hello” to some of our Illinois politicians! Good riddance, he deserves more.
We sure he’s NOT a CIA spy in Pakistan, now creating a cover story that he was an incompetent EPA official to throw off the Taliban?