Remember that EPA hack who got paid vacations because his boss took him at his word that he was a CIA spook?
Well it turns out while he had little qualifications he’s part of the regulations that are making life difficult for industry.
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.
…Beale was first brought on as a career employee by his friend Robert Brenner in 1989, after a stint working as a consultant for the agency. According to the Senate GOP report, he had no environmental experience, and his federal legislative experience was limited to an unpaid internship for a senator. Yet he was brought on at the maximum pay level for an employee of his kind — at a level typically reserved for people with 20 years’ experience, according to the report.
In 1995, Beale and Brenner apparently began working on what are known as National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for Ozone and Particulate Matter (PM). This was a far-reaching process to regulate pollutants in the air — the push to regulate Particulate Matter covered small particles ranging from smoke to soot to fumes to dust. According to the report, Beale and the rest of the agency ran with the project.
“Under Beale’s leadership EPA took the unprecedented action of proposing standards for the two pollutants in tandem and aggressively tightened the standards to controversial levels,” the report said.
The report goes on to argue that the 1997 standards that resulted “set in motion” the way the EPA issues regulations under the Clean Air Act. The report alleges that this included “inflating benefits while underestimating costs.”
Shameful! Hopefully this will give a wedge for pro-freedom legislators to strike or amend these laws to reflect…you know, SCIENCE!
