EPA Scope Grows, Budget Increases By $100 Billion

By Adam Andrzejewski for RealClearWire

The U.S. Environmental Safety Company has a simple mission “to guard human well being and the surroundings – right this moment and day by day.” But its scope — and finances — hold rising, costing taxpayers tens of billions of {dollars}.

A brand new oversight report from OpenTheBooks discovered that the company has strayed from its founding in 1970, when it targeted on issues like regulating poisonous chemical substances, environmental contaminants in air or water, what constitutes an environmental hazard, and what instruments a authorities company can use to implement its undergirding ideas.

“With over 15,000 staffers as of fiscal yr 2022, the company has legislation enforcement, homeland safety, and authorized groups working to implement and develop environmental insurance policies,” the report states. “Previously two years alone, Congress has appropriated the company over $100 billion, a lot of it meant to bolster the company’s decades-long imaginative and prescient of bringing about ‘environmental justice’.”

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Final yr, the common wage was $124,252, with the pay for all 15,043 workers totaling $1.9 billion. The EPA’s finances proposal for fiscal yr 2024 asks for over 17,000 full-time equal employees.

The EPA now does a lot greater than defend water sources and clear up poisonous waste websites. It has a legislation enforcement arm answerable for bringing environmental criminals to justice, and employs 137 particular brokers who’ve firearms and might arrest individuals.

Between 2018 and 2022, the EPA spent $618,602 on weapons, ammunition, and navy type gear, together with physique armor, optical sights, night time imaginative and prescient gear, safety automobiles, and tactical units, kits, and outfits.

The 1,000-plus attorneys on its authorized workforce make it giant sufficient to rank as one of many largest legislation companies within the nation.

The EPA’s personal inspector common stated in a Congressional listening to that the company had a lot new funding that it couldn’t be correctly audited. Taxpayers needs to be involved each with the dimensions and scope of a federal company and with its spending habits.

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The #WasteOfTheDay is delivered to you by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com

Syndicated with permission from RealClearWire.

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