Porn-Watching EPA Employees Earning $120,000 A Year Put on Paid Administrative Leave

(CNSNews.com) - An inspector general (IG) investigation found that employees at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) earning $120,000 a year were watching pornography on the job and were put on paid administrative leave for almost a year before anybody tried to fire them.

“Over the past two years, the EPA Office of Inspector General (OIG) has conducted investigations of multiple cases of serious misconduct carried out by EPA employees,” explained the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee at a hearing on EPA mismanagement Thursday.

“EPA OIG investigated three instances of EPA employees who were found to be viewing pornography while at work. The U.S. attorney’s office declined prosecution for two cases while the third resulted in a criminal conviction. One of these employees is still on paid administrative leave pending administrative action by the EPA while another has retired.”

“There are continued problems with EPA employees who watch pornography at work,” said Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) in his opening remarks. “Even more insulting to taxpayers is that after the inspector general reported these abuses, the porn-watching employees were placed on paid administrative leave for almost a year before anybody even tried to fire them. Now these people were being paid roughly, in the neighborhood of about $120,000 a year.

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