Senior EPA Official Steals Millions from Taxpayers
May 13, 2014
Story at-a-glance
Highest paid EPA official pulled off a million-dollar con by
posing as a top-secret spy, so that he could take lavish
vacations on the government’s dime
His scam allowed him to take 33 airplane trips over the
course of a decade, costing the government $266,190
Thirty cents of every dollar spent on medical care in the US
is wasted, amounting to $750 billion annually; Medicare and
Disability programs are major sources, rife with inefficient
delivery and fraud
Bringing back states’ rights and reducing the size of the
federal government are key to resolving government
corruption
By Dr. Mercola
Have you ever awakened in the morning dreading another monotonous
day at a job that you hate? Have you ever fantasized about faking a
sudden illness, taking a personal day—or how about a personal year?
Maybe book a flight to Bermuda and spend a few months eating
pineapple and getting massages on the beach? Or perhaps better yet,
tell your boss you're a CIA spook on a top-secret mission, so you
won't be showing up at the office for some indeterminate length of
time.
Chances are, these are just idle fantasies that you quickly snap
out of as you blink your way back into reality... unless,
of course, you work for the US Government where you might
just get away with it.
EPA Hoodwinked by Its Highest Paid Climate Specialist
Senior policy advisor John C. Beale of the Environmental
Protection Agency's Office of Air and Radiation pulled off a million
dollar con in which he found a fix for his career doldrums by
convincing his bosses that he was a top-secret CIA operative.
This required him to be out of the office for extended periods of
time—claiming to be traveling the globe on clandestine missions in
the interest of homeland security.
Yes, this EPA official was vicariously acting out some sort of
James Bond fantasy instead of going to work—and getting paid for it.1
He occupied his time taking lavish vacations on the government's
dime.
Beale took 33 airplane trips between 2003 and 2011, costing the
government $266,190. On 70 percent of those, he traveled first class
and stayed in five-star hotels, traveled by limo, and charged more
than twice the government's allowed per diem limit.
Between vacations, he would just putter around his Northern
Virginia home doing pretty much nothing at all—and certainly not
working. Beale told one shameless lie after another.
For example, in order to be granted a handicap parking space, he
claimed to have contracted malaria in Vietnam. However, not only did
he never have malaria, he never served in Vietnam!2
How long would you guess he got away with this fraudulent scheme—a
month? A year? Try two decades!
Justice, After a 20 Year Long Con...
For well over 10 years and possibly closer to 20, Beale was able
to collect his salary—as well as his regular bonuses—while
performing almost no work, bilking the government out of close to a
million dollars.
Court documents trace his fabrications back through 2000, but
additional evidence suggests he may have been lying and manipulating
as far back as 1989.
The man was no slouch. A graduate of NYU and Princeton, Beale was
making $206,000 a year, making him the highest paid official at the
EPA—including the administrator. Pulling off such an elaborate
scheme on such a massive scale is quite complicated and requires the
skills of a master con. As Michelle Cottle writes in the Daily
Beast:3
"You gotta admit: As crackpot lies go, Beale's spy cover
was a stroke of genius. Whenever someone grew suspicious about
his work activities (or lack thereof),
Beale could simply whip out the national security card:
I'd love to tell you why I haven't been at work the past six
months, but then I'd have to kill you."
Once caught, Beale admitted to his elaborate deception and on
December 18, 2013, was sentenced to 32 months in federal prison and
payment of nearly 1.4 million dollars restitution.4
But why did it take more than a decade for the EPA to realize
their highest paid climate specialist was not really a CIA agent—in
fact, he had no relationship with the CIA at all, not even a
security clearance. How did such an elaborate scheme ever escape
notice?
Beale Is 'A Poster Child for What's Wrong with the Government'
Two new reports by the EPA Inspector General's office concluded
that the agency "enabled" Beale by failing to verify any of his
phony cover stories, and failed to check out hundreds of thousands
of dollars him in undeserved bonuses and travel expenses.
Inspector General Arthur Elkins said Beale was able to get away
with it due to "an absence of basic internal controls at the EPA."2
Prosecutor Jim Smith said Beale's crimes made him a "poster child
for what is wrong with government," a statement prompting immediate
investigations by two congressional committees into the EPA,
including EPA administrator Gina McCarthy, who was Beale's immediate
boss.
This was not the first EPA scandal of 2013. EPA official Robert
Brenner was scrutinized for accepting an $8,000 discount on a luxury
car arranged by a lobbyist. And in the wake of the Beale scandal,
another high-level EPA official is under scrutiny for allegedly
approving expenses for Beale—an official also under the direction of
Gina McCarthy.
Evidence suggests EPA knew as early as 2010 that Beale's story
was false, yet did not take action. Congressman Darrell Issa said
these EPA cases "raise serious questions about McCarthy's
capabilities as a manager and leader."5
This problem, unfortunately, is much larger than one government
official or agency. The Beale scandal is just one more example of
waste, fraud, and general corruption within the US government.
Government Can't Manage Taxpayer Dollars—Much Less Protect Your
Environment
The EPA cannot keep your money safe, much less make the
environment safe. Some of the EPA's high-level employees have come
from the same companies the EPA is supposed to regulate—they've
become a revolving door for industry. The two largest private sector
sources for EPA positions are
Monsanto and Waste Management Inc. Since 1970, at least 12
high-level EPA employees have come from one of these two companies,
including William Ruckelshaus, Linda Fisher, and Lidia Watrud.6,
7
EPA also has a history of being caught in money laundering
schemes. Take, for example, former EPA project manager Gordon
McDonald who was convicted in 2009 for rigging bids, accepting
kickbacks totaling 1.5 million dollars, and funneling big payoffs to
insiders via an EPA "superfund" in New Jersey.8,
9
And you may recall the EPA "warehouse" scandal in Landover
earlier in 2013. An EPA warehouse had been converted into a swanky
man-cave housing a sizeable athletic center, complete with cushy
furniture and televisions and a nicely stocked fridge. All of this
was, of course, carefully hidden from security cameras by partitions
and piles of strategically stacked boxes.10
Even more disturbing is the fact that EPA doles out hundreds of
millions of dollars per year to certain organizations of their
choice with no accountability, according to the Government
Accountability Office (GAO). Sometimes these funds are directed to
organizations for non-environmental purposes.11
Other branches of government are even more irresponsible—including
the Pentagon itself. As written in this Reuters Special Report:12
"The Pentagon is the only federal agency that has not
complied with a law that requires annual audits of all
government departments. That means that the $8.5 trillion in
taxpayer money doled out by Congress to the Pentagon since 1996,
the first year it was supposed to be audited, has never been
accounted for. That sum exceeds the value of China's economic
output last year."
Another Massive Source of Waste: Medicare Fraud
The US
healthcare system is one of the largest sources of waste. Thirty
cents of every healthcare dollar is wasted, adding up to $750
billion annually. Healthcare waste is a result of unnecessary
services, inefficient delivery of care, excess administrative costs,
inflated prices, prevention failures, and fraud—especially within
Medicare and disability programs.
Seniors make perfect targets for fraud and abuse.
The Federal
Disability Insurance Program has a $135-billion budget and
serves close to 12 million people, but its funds are in danger of
running out. The Senate Subcommittee for Investigations believes the
program is being abused—by lawyers, doctors and even some
recipients—putting the benefits for those who truly need them at
risk.
According to the Senate investigation, up to 25 percent of
disability files should not have been approved and another 20
percent are highly questionable. Some recipients are using
disability benefits as a financial bridge after their unemployment
benefits run out, which is easy to do since so many Americans have
chronic conditions or impairments.
The Biggest Defrauder of the Government Is the Drug Industry
Many drug companies are repeatedly found guilty of fraud,
cover-ups of fatal side effects, paying huge kickbacks to doctors,
and manipulating scientific research. The
worst of the worst are GlaxoSmithKline,
Pfizer, Eli Lilly, and Schering-Plough. These four companies
accounted for 53 percent of all financial penalties imposed on
pharmaceutical companies between 1990 and 2010.
Between 2009 and 2012, criminal and civil penalties have totaled
$18 billion. GlaxoSmithKline tops the list of repeat offenders with
penalties since 1991 totaling $7.56 billion.13
Recently,
GlaxoSmithKline pleaded guilty in the largest health fraud
settlement in US history. The company was fined $3 billion to
resolve criminal and civil liability charges related to illegal drug
marketing and withholding information about health hazards
associated with its diabetes drug Avandia.
Many drug companies are now being investigated for using bribes
to boost sales outside the US as well. For example, in August 2012,
Pfizer, the world's largest drug maker, paid $60.2 million in fines
to settle charges that the company had bribed an assortment of
government health officials in China, Russia, Italy, Bulgaria,
Croatia, Serbia, and Kazakhstan. Are these the folks to whom you
wish to entrust your health? These corporations are some of the
biggest goons on the planet.
The Drug Industry as 'Organized Crime'
The unfortunate thing is, whether you're talking about Big
Pharma, Big Ag, or Big Banks, the US government has been "bought" by
industry thugs. Despite stiffer financial penalties, criminal
activity has increased dramatically over the past several years,
indicating that criminal prosecution of company leadership may be
needed to quell unlawful behavior by the drug industry. Due to the
astronomical profits made by these companies, there appears to be no
fine large enough to make a difference—even hundreds of
millions of dollars!
The size of the penalty must outweigh the size of the gain from
breaking the law, and thus far, this has not been the case. In fact,
it appears that for some drug companies, commission of such criminal
and civil violations has become part of their business model. As an
article in The British Medical Journal concludes:13
"Are criminal and civil penalties of hundreds of millions
of dollars an important deterrent to law breaking by
international drug companies? We are forced to conclude that
neither the current level of penalties nor corporate integrity
agreements are effective and that there is a pathological lack
of corporate integrity in many drug companies."
Take Control of Your Own Health
Ultimately, the take-home message here is that you have to take
responsibility for your own welfare, and that of your environment.
You cannot entrust your health to the government, in the hopes that
someone else will make the appropriate decisions based on what's
right and true, opposed to taking the opportunity to make a buck at
your expense.
When it comes to your health, an ounce of prevention is certainly
better than a pound of cure, especially when the cure comes in a
pill. Please keep in mind that leading a common-sense, healthy
lifestyle is your best bet to achieve and maintain a
healthy body and mind. And while conventional medical science may
flip-flop back and forth in its recommendations, there are certain
basic tenets of optimal health (and healthy weight) that do not
change, including the following:
Proper Food Choices: For a comprehensive
guide on which foods to eat and which to avoid, see my
nutrition plan. Generally speaking, you should be looking to
focus your diet on whole, ideally organic, unprocessed foods.
For the best nutrition and health benefits, you will want to eat
a good portion of your
food raw.
Avoid
sugar, and fructose in particular. All forms of sugar have
toxic effects when consumed in excess, and drive multiple
disease processes in your body, not the least of which is
insulin resistance, a major cause of chronic disease and
accelerated aging. I believe the two primary keys for successful
weight management are severely restricting carbohydrates
(sugars, fructose, and grains) in your diet, and increasing
healthy fat consumption. This will optimize insulin and leptin
levels, which is key for maintaining a healthy weight and
optimal health.
Regular exercise: Even if you're eating the
healthiest diet in the world, you still need to exercise to
reach the highest levels of health, and you need to be
exercising effectively, which means including high-intensity
activities into your rotation. High-intensity interval-type
training boosts
human growth hormone (HGH) production, which is essential
for optimal health, strength and vigor. HGH also helps boost
weight loss.
So along with core-strengthening exercises, strength
training, and stretching, I highly recommend that twice a week
you do
Peak Fitness exercises, which raise your heart rate up to
your anaerobic threshold for 20 to 30 seconds, followed by a
90-second recovery period.
Stress Reduction: You cannot be optimally
healthy if you avoid addressing the emotional component of your
health and longevity, as your emotional state plays a role in
nearly every physical disease -- from heart disease and
depression, to arthritis and cancer. Meditation, prayer, social
support, and exercise are all viable options that can help you
maintain emotional and mental equilibrium. I also strongly
believe in using simple tools such as the
Emotional Freedom Technique
(EFT) to address deeper, oftentimes hidden, emotional
problems.
Maintain a healthy gut: About 80 percent of
your immune system resides in your gut, and research is stacking
up showing that probiotics—beneficial bacteria—affect your
health in a myriad of ways; it can even influence your ability
to
lose weight. A healthy diet is the ideal way to maintain a
healthy gut, and regularly consuming traditionally
fermented foods is the easiest, most cost effective way to
ensure optimal gut flora.
Avoid as many chemicals, toxins, and pollutants as
possible: This includes tossing out your
toxic household cleaners, soaps, personal hygiene products,
air fresheners, bug sprays, lawn pesticides, and insecticides,
just to name a few, and replacing them with
non-toxic alternatives.
Get plenty of
high-quality sleep: Regularly catching only a few
hours of sleep can hinder metabolism and hormone production in a
way that is similar to the effects of aging and the early stages
of diabetes. Chronic sleep loss may speed the onset or increase
the severity of age-related conditions such as type 2 diabetes,
high blood pressure, obesity, and memory loss.
Copyright 1997- 2014 Dr. Joseph Mercola. All Rights Reserved.